


Memoranda

by snark



Series: Those Isles of Yours [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, F/M, Sequel, buckynat - Freeform, fragments of memory, winterwidow - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-08-16 02:15:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8082775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snark/pseuds/snark
Summary: The Winter Soldier keeps encountering the same woman in indistinct memories. Natasha Romanoff struggles to remember half as well as that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The fic will most likely be short and it will be made up of fragmented pieces of their histories. It is a direct sequel to my previous fic, Death Grounds. This probably won't make much sense without having read it. Enjoy!

_ The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her! _

‘Wuthering Heights’, Emily Brontë

 

Odessa, ??/??/??

 

The Soldier assembled his rifle slowly. There was time still until his target would pass. Patience was an essential member of his skillset. He loaded it with six slugs. He probably would not need them all.

The sound of tyres drew his eye. Along the cliff’s edge an indistinct silver car sped. 

He shouldered his rifle and looked through the scope. His stomach tensed on the rock as he spotted his target in the back seat. As he moved his finger to the trigger the driver waved the man’s head down, out of sight of the windows. The Soldier scowled briefly. He took aim again and shot out the back tyre.

It exploded with a sound like thunder. The driver lost control. The car span madly to its left and simply continued until it tumbled over the edge of the cliff. The Soldier drew his eye away and watched it sail downward. It hit the rocks at the bottom of the ravine with a loud crunching sound. He shouldered his rifle and waited.

The driver was the first emerge from the car some minutes later. She climbed out the now shattered rear window, shaking glass from her red hair. She reached back pulled out the target with one hand. In the other she held a pistol.

He aimed quickly, but the woman covered the target with her body. She ushered him away from the wreckage of their car and behind a large boulder. He lost sight of them.

The soldier slung his rifle across his back. He rose and crossed to the edge of the ravine. Slowly, he stalked the lip of the rock, waiting for them to come into sight once more. It was not until he reached the skid marks that had been left by their car that they did appear.

The woman still covered the target. She was using a radio to contact someone. Realising she would not likely surrender him, the Soldier raised his gun and shot the target through her. 

His aim was true. The bullet smacked into the target’s head. His body slumped to one side immediately. The woman cried out and slapped a hand over the bullet wound in her abdomen. She looked up at the soldier.

He stared at her numbly for there was something familiar in her face. He lowered the rifle steadily. Her right hand shot up and sent two bullets at him in quick succession. The Soldier blocked them with his metal arm, turned, and fled for his motorbike nearby. Undoubtedly someone would find this woman, seeing how she had radio contact. He could not afford to be discovered.

As the Soldier rode back towards Odessa he thought of her face again. It was her cheeks he recognised - plump and rosy in a way he had not seen on anyone else before. But he could not place her. He did not know her.

She had a beauty spot by her lip, it seemed a little familiar too. He had seen it before. He slowed to a halt by the road, hidden beneath trees and the rapidly descending night. 

A strange, fluttering emotion bubbled in his chest. He took a moment to breathe and assess himself. Was he injured? No. He felt injured. He was malfunctioning.

His metal hand squeaked in protest as he gripped the handle of the bike too tightly. He loosened it. He swallowed to quell the banging of his heart. Perhaps he was unwell. 

He restarted the bike and continued.

-

‘Well done, soldier,’ his handler praised him. ‘Beautifully done, as always.’

The Soldier said nothing. He had long since learned not to speak even when spoken to. The handler walked to a small control deck build into the floor of the room. 

‘We have one more mission for you yet,’ he said. ‘Sit.’

Before he had a chance to move the Soldier was shoved into a metal chair. Quietly, numbly, he submitted to the metal restraints looped over his limbs. He opened his mouth to take the rubber disk between his teeth.

‘But first,’ the handler continued, ‘you must be prepared.’

He looked up at the man with cold eyes. Of all his activities, this was his least favourite. A little hate burned in his belly.

The plates descended towards his face, crackling with electricity. Just then, the memory of that woman’s cheeks filled his mind. The little mole by her lip...In his mind’s eye he could see her smiling.

The warm kiss of metal on his temples turned the world black.

  
  


Paris, ??/??/??

 

The waitress had red hair. 

Not orange or auburn but  _ red. _ It was very red.

The Soldier stared at it unflinchingly. It fascinated him. She paid him no attention. He was very much out of her line of sight being four stories up and sitting in a dark window. She smiled at the diners who ate so late in the summer heat. She brushed her hair away from her face again - it seemed to be bothering her. He watched as she retreated inside the restaurant.

Willed by some unknown urge, he sat forward as she retreated to peer at the dimly lit laptop that sat on the chair beside him. He balanced precariously with one leg outside the window sill and one in the apartment. Quickly he located her on the security footage he had intercepted.

She was in the kitchen, standing in front of the open fridge. She had her hair pulled up and away from her neck in one hand. She hunched over, cooling herself.

He regretted the black and white footage. He wanted to see her red hair again.

A chef yelled at her and she shut the fridge. She threw a brilliant smile at the man before leaving the kitchen. Her hair swung as she walked. He turned to look out the window again.

She appeared in the streetlight as vibrant as before. She smiled at her customers and cleared empty tables of dirty dishes. All the while he stared at her red hair.

He liked red hair.

Images danced through his mind of red-haired women without faces. Only dresses and red curls showed up in the memory. The scene shifted. Thick, wet foliage bared down over red hair. His view was from behind. Small hands reached up and tied the hair into a tight knot. Her neck was red, and sweaty.

The image faded as he caught sight of movement in the street. The target was leaving his table. The Soldier slipped from the window ledge onto the fire escape. He pursued the target one hundred yards behind. He saw the security codes he entered with the aid of binoculars. He committed them to memory.

When the gates swung shut the Soldier remained in his hiding place. The time to strike was not then - he would leave it a day before fulfilling his mission. He had no extraction plan in place for that night. So he retreated back the way he had come. 

He did not know why but he sat down at a table outside the cafe and hoped to see the waitress again. Sure enough, she arrived at his side promptly.

Streetlights lit her hair from the back as she looked across his table at him. The deep red strands caught the light atop her head like a halo. She smiled at him pleasantly, and asked if he would like something to drink. He ordered a coffee.

He watched her red head through the windows of the restaurant as she made his coffee. When she returned she had a pack of cigarettes in her other hand.

‘It’s my break now,’ she said softly. ‘Do you mind if I join you?’

She indicated the rather empty restaurant. The Soldier shrugged. She smiled and sat and lit and cigarette. She offered him one and he declined. He sipped his coffee.

‘I haven’t seen you here before,’ she said.

Her head tilted and her hair swung out from behind her shoulder like a curtain. He shrugged.

‘Are you from around here?’

‘No,’ he replied.

‘Where are you from?’

_ Lie, _ a voice in his head urged.

‘Odessa.’

‘Ah, that’s in the Ukraine?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you on holiday.’

‘I’m here for work,’ he said.

She dragged on her cigarette and smiled as she exhaled. ‘What do you do?’

‘I build houses.’

‘I bet you have builder’s hands.’ 

She reached across the tabled to where his gloved hands rested. The Soldier snatched them away. She looked hurt for a moment and sat back. He stared numbly at her red hair.

‘Listen,’ she said, stubbing out her cigarette, ‘you’re a little weird, but I see the way you’re looking at me. If you want to do this, I get off at 11.’

She smiled, rose, and left. The Soldier swallowed the sudden bile in his throat and rose also. He left a bill on the table next to his half-drunk coffee and decided women with red hair were to be avoided in the future.

  
  


Siberia ??/??/??

 

The Soldier stared up towards the ceiling of the dungeon he was kept in. It was impossible to tell if it was day or night outside. Beside him his cryotank buzzed slowly. It was powering down after some time. He had been sleeping again.

He knew there was a lid on this dungeon. He did not know how he knew, he simply did. He imagined climbing up and out. He could do it - he was strong enough. However, he could not do it with so many guards present. They would shoot him down in a second.

Still - he dreamed. He was not sure they knew that he dreamed in his tank. Well, they were not really  _ dreams _ . They were murmurs at best - attempts at dreams that failed miserably. They were flutters of images or mutterings of feelings. Echoes perhaps was the right word. He had echoes in his sleep. By the time he awoke they were too distant to be deciphered.

Except the ones he cultivated. Those remained, and he had long since learned to keep quiet about them. They were the only things he had. If they knew they would take them.

They were not much. A rosy cheek, a mole, bright red hair, the damp smell of a forest, blistering heat, the fuzz of a peach...He did not know why but they stuck when everything else slid away like water. So he fed them his attention. He doted on these little echoey dreams. 

_ ‘Please!’ _

The cry of a woman. It was a word he had heard many times. People begged often before death. He heard the word in a hundred voices but one stood out - a woman’s...a girl’s… He was not sure which.

A file was shoved into his hand, breaking his thoughts apart like paper. He opened it to see a photograph of his next targets.

‘Sanction and extract,’ he was told. ‘No witnesses.’

It was a long journey. The Soldier packed up his echoes and secured them inside his chest somewhere. They were his only company, and he was travelling far. 

Alone on his jet he unpacked his echoes and held them like flowers to his nose. He breathed deeply the freshness they brought. Each time he brought them to mind they became yet clearer. Above the cheek was a blue eye, bright and intelligent. Above it was a soft, red eyebrow. This he connected to the red hair, and to the mole and to the voice he heard if he listened hard enough. 

It was an incomplete picture, but it was all he had. He held it tightly.


	2. Chapter 2

_ I fancied you’d return the way you said _

_ But I grow old and I forget your name. _

_ (I think I made you up inside my head.) _

 

‘Mad Girl’s Love Song’, Sylvia Plath

  
  


New York City, March 2014

 

Natasha sipped her wine delicately. Beside her, Pepper did the same. Her perfectly manicured fingers made the action effortlessly elegant. Natasha’s nails, however, were short and chipped. She had only yesterday got that last bit of blood out from underneath them from a mission two days previous.

‘What about him?’ Pepper murmured.

Natasha watched the long, thin man she indicated as he cross the hotel lobby. From their vantage point at the bar they had a near perfect view of every person who came in or out. Natasha wrinkled her nose.

‘No.’

‘What’s wrong with him?’ she sighed.

She shrugged. ‘He’s too tall. I’m five foot nothing.’

‘Fine. What about...That guy? The one in the dark loafers.’

Natasha snorted. ‘Do I look like I fuck guys who wear loafers?’

‘C’mon, he’s cute!’

‘No he’s not. He’s blonde. I don’t like blonde guys.’

‘Y’know this would go a lot faster if you gave me a model to work from,’ Pepper teased. ‘There must be someone you think about when you...y’know…’ She raised her eyebrows.

Natasha let out a peal of laughter. ‘Seriously? No, Pepper, I’m not fourteen!’

‘Oh now I know you’re full of shit,’ Pepper scolded. ‘Who  _ was _ it then when you were fourteen?’

Natasha rolled her eyes. ‘Didn’t exactly have a lot of movie nights at the Red Room.’

Pepper’s eyes softened slightly. Natasha had never divulged the details, but she knew the gist of her upbringing. She tilted her head to indicate she was listening. Natasha felt a devilish grin spread across her face.

‘I guess there was one…’ 

Pepper drummed her hands on the bar in excitement. Natasha struggled to keep her laughter down at the thought of it. She fought an embarrassed blush.

‘Who? C’mon!’

Natasha rolled her eyes. ‘Marlon Brando.’

Pepper’s red lips popped open. ‘ _ Marlon Brando?! _ ’ she repeated in surprise.

Natasha shrugged. ‘They would sometimes show us American media that disparaged Communism. He did this film called  _ On the Waterfront _ ….I felt very rebellious day dreaming about the enemy.’ Another laugh escaped her.

‘I know that film,’ Pepper replied. ‘Oh, he  _ is _ cute in it! Good choice!’

‘I told you mine, now you tell me yours,’ Natasha deflected.

Without missing a beat Pepper said, ‘George Clooney.’

‘You’re such a cliché.’

Pepper blew a raspberry at her and returned her attention to the crowded bar. She craned her neck a little, brushing her ginger hair over one shoulder.

‘So I’m looking for someone with dark hair...Blue eyes...A good body…’

‘Pepper,’ Natasha scolded lightly.

She sent her a sideways look, a smirk on her painted lips. ‘Someone who looks like he would fuck you up against a wall…’

Natasha’s mind wandered while Pepper scanned the room. It was true she had a thing for dark-haired, light-eyed men...and men who were on the scruffy side. Men who looked a little dangerous undeniably turned her on, when their danger was not directed her way of course. She liked men with hair she could hang onto.

She took a deep gulp of wine. Pepper was determined and it was going to be a long night.

Her hunt, however, proved fruitless. Pepper donned her coat with an air of dignified defeat, the kind that said she would try again next Saturday. Natasha pulled her scarf tight around her neck before they stepped out into the chill to look for a cab. She was staying at the Stark Tower during her brief trip to New York. Soon she would be posted in DC.

‘Oh, I got one for you!’ Pepper cried with a laugh.

She let go of Natasha’s arm and jogged to the bus stop a few metres away from them. It was the advert she pointed to. It was a poster for the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian. Pepper’s nail tapped urgently at the figure depicted on Steve’s right. One of his Howling Commandos. They fanned out behind him, looking like the worst boy band ever.

‘Am I supposed to know who that is?’ Natasha asked dryly.

‘Um, Bucky Barnes?’ Pepper prompted. ‘American hero? Captain America’s best friend? Best sniper in the whole of World War II?’

She shrugged. Pepper laughed, her face brightening.

‘Moot point anyway,’ she pointed out. She slapped the glass covering the poster in a friendly way. ‘Been dead about seventy years now, but isn’t he  _ cute? _ ’ She jogged back to Natasha’s side and looped one arm over her shoulders. ‘And he fits your description  _ exactly _ .’

Natasha wanted to scoff, but she was right. She tilted her head as she considered the dead man who looked so very brooding by Steve’s side. His hair was not as neat as the others, his eyes not as righteous. Pepper said he was a sniper - that meant cloak and dagger. Even in the no doubt heavily doctored photo he had five o’clock shadow on his strong chin. He was very handsome, and he  _ was _ her type.

‘Taxi!’ Pepper cried, suddenly tearing away from Natasha.

Natasha smirked at the photograph and to herself. She was only seventy years too late. She turned and followed Pepper into the backseat of the waiting cab.

  
  


Washington D.C., March 2014

 

On her first day in D.C. (after she had finished unpacking and bugging her own apartment) Natasha went to the Smithsonian. She didn’t really know why. She attempted several times to convince herself it was to snoop on Steve’s past. They would be working together a lot she knew. It made sense to learn as much as possible about him. 

But that was a lie.

She stood outside the Smithsonian, staring up at the banner that depicted Steve Rogers in larger than life form. She was not there for him. She was there for Bucky Barnes, and what chilled her was that she had no idea why.

From that day two weeks prior when Pepper had drunkenly pointed him out on a bus stop, Natasha’s mind had fixated on the lost soldier. She had googled him extensively, learned all his trivia, but her curiosity was not sated. She was drawn to him inexplicably and it bothered her. 

Natasha put a lot of stock in her gut feelings. They usually kept her alive. Although she did not understand it, she followed this one too. It led her to his memorial exhibit and to a large photograph of his face. A voice over babbled about his life and his relationship with Steve. It was all things she knew. She read over the information, but she knew all that too.

Natasha sighed and stared at him. Bucky Barnes...What a stupid name. 

_ ‘...fell from a train in the Alps and to his death…’  _ The voice over continued.

The Alps...Her mind buzzed -  _ something _ was trying to make a connection. It was not until she heard those mountains aloud that she heard them in another voice. 

_ ‘I remember mountains, I think they were the Alps.’ _

The voice was garbled, distorted as if coming through a poor radio reception. She screwed her eyes shut and attempted to concentrate. It felt like a dream to her; an intricate one you struggle to remember when you wake.  _ Someone _ she knew had fallen in the Alps.

She opened her eyes and scoffed at herself. It had been a long time since she had tried to regain her suppressed memories. She had not even set out with that goal in mind that day. That was the way of subconscious. It led the conscious mind on a wild goose chase at the drop of a hat. The hat, in this case, Bucky Barnes.

She elected to walk home despite it being several blocks in the rain. She needed the air to think, and get her mind right again. She guessed she had once known someone who looked like Barnes, who had died. It could have been a target, or even an instructor. 

She ducked her head and let the fat drops soak into her scalp. This was heavy spring rain. It was a good cleanser. Natasha shook out her obsessive anxiety around Barnes and. Her brain’s murmurs of forgotten memories were no use to her. She threw them out.

 

Washington D.C., June 2014

 

‘Not staying here?’ Steve asked her.

‘No.’ Natasha drew in a breath and shrugged. ‘I blew all my covers. I gotta go figure out a new one.’

‘That might take a while.’

‘I’m counting on it.’

She kissed him on the cheek and left. She ducked her head as she lost herself in the crowds on the way to the train station. She had a locker there, and enough cash to get her out of the country. Natasha knew she had a limited window to flee. Any day the relevant authorities would make up their minds about her. If they decided to come for her, and charge her for the crimes she had committed, she would be long gone. There were not many places for her to hide, but she knew of one for certain. It was perhaps the last place the world expected her to go.

It was time to return home.

 

LOCATION CLASSIFIED, June 2014

 

The Red Room was old and dusty but as sturdy as ever. The paint peeled, but little else. She broke the chain and padlock that sealed the front door. Her footsteps echoed as she entered.

The Red Room had been inactive for six years. She had believed it was shut down by Department X due to the lack of successful candidates it produced. She had defected, Yelena Belova had gone crazy, and every other Black Widow had died too young to make a name for herself. However, she had very recently uncovered that it was HYDRA who put the Red Room down. They had not appreciated the competition.

Natasha coughed as dust span around her. The silence was a little heavy, but only because she remembered it being respectful, revered silence. Now it was a purely empty silence. She dropped her bag by a studio door and pushed it wide, ignoring the echoes that rippled through the old building. Unwittingly, her feet moved into first position.

But the ballet barre was coated in dust now, the mirrors tarnished and uncared for. The piano in the corner looked sad, its stool knocked over onto its side. 

She tried to feel something, but she couldn’t. The Red Room had taken her life a hundred times over. She had given blood, sweat, tears and dreams to this building and all it represented. She had spent enough emotion on the Red Room for one lifetime. Well...except curiosity. She still had plenty of that.

Natasha smirked to herself and left the studio. With her bag on one shoulder she made her way to the one room she had never been permitted to enter. The girls had nicknamed it The Vault all those years ago.

It was tightly locked, but not to Natasha. She broke through the padlocks and chains and even the bike lock that held the heavy, metal door closed. It was tucked away beneath a grand staircase: the home of Red Room data.

It was a surprisingly empty room. It seemed they had transferred everything to digital copies at some point. Alone against the wall of the room was a large computer, its screen blank and inviting.

‘Well, I’ve been here before,’ she murmured aloud.

She shoved back memories of Zola and strode to the desktop. She blew away a layer of dust from the keyboard. It took a moment of searching to find the on button. It whirred to life quietly. She slipped a USB decryption device into the computer. It went to work with ease.

Natasha had always wanted her original files. There were irritating gaps in her memory from her youth she wanted to fill, and missions she wanted to confirm were not simply nightmares. She wanted to, for the first time in her life, get her story straight.

A small green search bar blinked into existence on the screen. Natasha raised her fingers and typed: ROMANOFF, NATALIA ALIANOVNA.

Multiple digital files popped up. She watched the scroll bar shorten as the list loaded. It seemed the information she wanted was not compiled, but merely tagged. She sighed through her nose. After a minute the search completed.

Natasha scrolled through the files. The names each meant something to her... _ Operation Black Widow, Operation Heavyweight, Operation Icepick... _ And then operations she had no memory of. She frowned heavily as she read through them, each dated in descending order. The further she went back the less she remembered.  _ Operation Whisky Sierra, Operation Black Hawk, Operation Iron Dais... _

She paused when she reached the file titled  _ Physical Record _ because this was not a codename. She double clicked. The first line had her gagging. Natasha slapped a hand over her mouth and breathed hard through her nose. 

Next to a photograph of her young face were the words:

_ Date of Birth: November 22nd 1951 _


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the late update, this story is fighting me something terrible. I'll do my best to get the next chapter up much sooner, Snark.

_You are a victim of the rules you live by._

Jenny Holzer

  


Location Classified, August 1975

 

Natalia stretched as she red over the mission objectives. She resisted the urge to frown at the little tentacled skull stamped in the top corner. So they were doing favours for HYDRA now? Nazi bastards deserved to burn for what they did to Russia. She closed the file. It read _Operation Whisky Sierra_ across its front, bizarrely, in English.

‘Why me?’ she asked. ‘This is not a usual mission.’

Ivan shifted uncomfortably for a second. ‘There have been multiple attempts to complete this operation. None of the operatives survived the weather conditions.’ He leaned towards her across the desk. ‘You have displayed exceptional survival skills, Natashenka. I believe you can complete this mission.’

‘Does HYDRA not have operatives of their own who can climb mountains?’ she asked haughtily.

Ivan’s face pinched. ‘We owe a debt to them. They asked for our most skilled operative after the deaths of several of their own men.’

She sighed through her nose. ‘I don’t really have a choice, do I?’

Ivan smiled. ‘Indeed not.’

‘I’ll need supplies,’ she said.

‘Keep your receipts.’

She rose and allowed him to kiss her. Not without irritation Natalia took the file and returned to her room. She had some cold weather gear left from a mission two years previous, but most of it had not survived. Some still had blood stuck in the fur lining. That would not be a problem, however. Nobody would be around to see her abseiling down a basin in the Alps.

It seemed a pointless mission to her. It was data retrieval, a menial task only given to her due to the difficult conditions. HYDRA wanted a file from their old base up there. It had been almost thirty years since someone had opened that freezer, she doubted it would still even be there. And if it was it would be frozen stiff.

Nevertheless she packed her thickest woolen socks. It may have been summer, but she was going up high. She unravelled them to check for a holes and started slightly when a necklace tumbled out. It hit the ground with a tinkling thud, and was silent.

Natalia crouched to peer at it, unwilling to touch. It was a jade pendant, rimmed with metal, hanging on a simple silver chain. She nudged it with a finger before picking it up in her hand. She frowned.

Something buzzed in the back of her mind like an itch she could not quite locate to scratch. She knew this piece of jewellery, she recognised it, but she had no idea where it had come from nor why it was hidden even from herself.

It was very pretty. She felt it was adequately shaped as a teardrop - it made an inexplicable sadness well within her. She closed her fist around it. If she had hidden it once perhaps it was prudent to do so again. She laced it around her neck and tucked it deep under her clothes. It sat, cool and disquieting, against her heart.

  


The Swiss Alps, August 1975

 

Natalia grunted as she slammed her ice pick against the frozen door. She had taken this one from one of the bodies that lay partly uncovered by the snow. Her first one had broken during the descent.

It had not been an easy climb down into the ravine. She understood now why HYDRA’s operatives had not made it. A few times she had felt her own death breathing down her neck. But she had succeeded, and now she hacked at the door, chipping ice from the seal that held it closed.

Pulling the near last of her strength from her muscles she broke through. The ice pick clanged as it hit the metal of the door. She hooked the tip of it around the edge and wrenched. Her feet slid a little despite her climbing shoes, but the door came free. Natalia dragged it open and gave a relieved sigh.

Once out of the snow, in a darkened corridor, she took the metal rails from her boots. Their sharp teeth nearly cut her. Delicately she toed them to the side and neatly into a corner. The click of her flashlight turning on echoed in the underground bunker.

To her surprise the light switches worked. She had not expected the ancient generator to still function. With delight she turned on the heating and went in search of what she came for.

The base was mainly laboratories. Old equipment cluttered the rooms, silent and a little creepy. Natalia cringed a little at the old, slightly tarnished scalpels laid out for a surgery that would never happen. She searched for an office. Luckily the base was not large, and the office left unlocked. It seemed whoever HYDRA had here had left in a rush all those years ago. She prised open filing cabinets and began searching. The file she was looking for was codenamed of course. She could not understand what kind of a code name was _Winter Soldier_.

From the very bottom drawer she yanked it out. The file was thick, detailed. She scanned the cover briefly and set it aside. Beside it had been another file with the same title, but this one was a package.

It was small, slim, and held only a set of dog tags, an old fashioned knife and (most disturbingly) what looked like a taxidermied finger. Natalia frowned in disgust and sealed the envelope shut once again. She turned her attention back to the file.

She opened the cover to check that validity of the entry, and froze solid. Heat bloomed across her face, confused and passionate. The photograph of the subject of this file looked back at her.

And she knew him.

It was as if a light switch had been flipped in her head. A generator she herself had forgotten about powered up and spat memories out at an alarming rate. Natalia let out a low, horrified gasp.

‘James,’ she spoke to herself in disbelief. She ran her fingers over his picture. ‘Yasha.’

She dove for the package again and pulled out the tags. They were cool, and sharp edged in her fingers. Greedily she read the letters stamped into the metal.

 

JAMES B. BARNES

1992756 T42 43  A+

WINIFRED BARNES

17 WIMBORNE AVE

BROOKLYN, NY     C

 

Her heart thumped madly. His surname was Barnes. She flicked back to the open file. James Buchanan Barnes. His blood type was A+, Winifred Barnes was his next of kin...His mother, most likely, perhaps a sister? He was from Brooklyn. He was Catholic. He was. He had been.

Natalia wrapped one hand around his tags and one around the necklace he had given her. A sob battled its way up her throat. No wonder they had sent so many agents to die before calling her in. They did not want her to know this.

She remembered the chair now - the blistering pain. Just as they rewrote his memories they rewrote hers. She had _forgotten_.

The sob broke through. Her chest ached with the strength of it. It flooded through her mind now: his expression in the jungle, his warm metal hand, his empty eyes as they led him from her. She shook like a leaf in a hurricane.

She grit her teeth against the emotion. Her relationship with him had been a stupid risk. They had been punished fairly.

But the burn of cries in the night made her cold on the inside. The old rebellious thoughts came home too. He was not _their_ soldier, he was hers.

And she was _not_ their slave.

 

There were two ways to go about things, always. One was to fire on all cylinders, attack head on, guns blazing. The second was to wait patiently and spin a web. The Black Widow was much better at the latter.

So she packed up the files and the artefacts, unhooking the dog tags from around her neck and slipping them back into the envelope. She put the spikes back on her boots and climbed back up the ridge. She hiked to her extraction point. She carefully schooled her expression into one of indifference.

Natalia was a little surprised to see two armed guards in the back of the chopper. Ordinarily it would have been her and a pilot. It seemed they had anticipated her memory recovery - they were there to restrain her in case she tried to make a break for it.

So Natalia nodded to them, boarded the chopper and sat herself between them in silence. She surrendered the file, and was left alone for the remainder of the flight. She stared at the snow fall out the window. The thrum of the ‘copter provided an adequate soundtrack to her misery.

 _All this time_ , she thought, _I have been in someone else’s web._

When Natalia arrived back at the Red Room she calmly went to debrief. She lied about the mission - told Ivan exactly what he wanted to hear. He appraised her quietly.

‘Tell me, Natasha,’ he began once she had finished, ‘what do you know of the Winter Soldier?’

She shrugged a little. ‘That HYDRA has a deep investment in him. Why else send so many operatives to die out there?’

He nodded. ‘Always so observant.’ He leaned across the table, staring at her. ‘The Soldier is a living weapon,’ he said carefully, ‘with an arm of metal.’

She raised her eyebrows as if surprised. This seemed to satisfy Ivan, who smiled and leaned back in his chair.

‘Go get warm by the fire,’ he ordered gently. ‘You’re dismissed.’

‘No new missions?’ she asked.

‘Not for now.’

Natalia rose and left. Her web would take time to build, but she could be patient. It made her uneasy, however, to be dangling on this single thread. 

 

Greece, November 1975

 

It was easy, really, to gain control of HYDRA’s systems remotely. Natalia knew the kind of technology she was in possession of was advanced. Theirs was not. Hence, easy. She was unsurprised they had not protected themselves against such an attack - the only way to access the systems was to know the exact location of the base. Hardly anybody did.

Natalia did.

She also knew where James was posted at that very moment.

Her heart fluttered as she printed herself a name badge, and ID card; it all seemed a little too easy. But she had been careful. Their eyes had been watchful - they suspected she would remember. She gave them nothing. The could not know.

They also could not know that Natalia was in the public library close to her hotel in Athens. She had extracted her tracker from her elbow the previous night. In that moment it was tied to a park bench by a piece of string, pretending to do her recon for her. Her elbow still stung under her bandages, but at least the bleeding had stopped.

Natalia slipped the ID card into her pocket. She resisted the urge to scan the floor map of the hotel. She knew intimately which room his target would be in. She knew where he would likely find an entry point. Blueprints had been the first thing she printed. She could have likely drawn them in her sleep.

Carefully she detached her laptop from the printer and slipped the large, ungainly thing into her bag. At least it was smaller than a computer. She made for the exit and back towards the park. There she collected her tracker and returned to her hotel room.

It was easy, really, to fake her own kidnapping.

She leaked her own location to the CIA agents protecting their boss who had come to Athens on diplomatic business. She let them burst down her hotel room. She let them make their threats. She took one of them out by snapping his neck. The other she allowed to disarm her and put her in handcuffs. She even let him march her from the hotel and into the back of a black van. He and another operative drove her a little distance out the city to make her murder less obvious. She killed them under a rail bridge and kicked their bodies onto the lines.

Natalia reopened the cut on her elbow, dropping the tracker to the ground as she did so. She watched dispassionately as she let her blood flow freely across the rocky ground. She even splattered it about a bit, to make it seem as if she had fought back.

She glanced at the bodies of the tracks. Freight trains went through here - they would be body parts scattered across Europe before anybody realised they were gone. And she would be ‘kidnapped’.

She bandaged her wound carefully and took their van.

It was easy.

Now came the hard part.


	4. Chapter 4

_Thousands have lived without love, not one without water._

W.H. Auden

  


Washington D.C., February 2016

 

‘ _When_ ,’ Steve began in a frustrated tone, ‘will spies stop breaking into my apartment?’

Natasha turned and smiled at him. ‘When you stop making it so easy, I imagine.’

He sighed. With turn of his shoulder he dropped a heavy backpack to the floor. He looked rougher than Natasha had ever seen - deeply black circles sat under his eyes and scruff that could just about be called a beard growing on his face. She worried her lip a little. Perhaps it was not best to tell him.

But then again, compartmentalisation had near enough destroyed SHIELD.

She took a deep breath through her nose as quietly as she could. There was telling him and then there was having an emotional breakdown. She smiled again benignly.

‘No luck?’ she prompted.

Steve shook his head. He looked in the fridge and seemed pleasantly surprised she had replaced the expired milk. He swigged straight from the carton.

‘I don’t know where he is,’ Steve muttered. ‘I don’t know how a person just up and disappears.’

Natasha shrugged. ‘You also don’t lock your windows,’ she replied drily.

Steve scowled suddenly. ‘I _do_ lock my windows!’

She frowned back. ‘No, what you do is the equivalent of putting up a sign that says “please do not disturb”.’

‘Are you here to insult me? Is that it?’ he asked a little testily.

She smiled again. ‘No, I’m actually here to talk to you.’

Steve pottered about the kitchen, opening cupboards in search of food. Natasha, however, had only brought with her a box of cereal that morning.

‘About what?’ he asked distractedly as he shook cornflakes into a bowl.

‘About him,’ she replied evenly. ‘About Bucky.’

She almost tripped over the name. It sounded wrong on her lips, and tasted so too. She resisted the urge to wrinkle her nose in distaste. The man she had encountered on the streets of D.C. was not a _Bucky_.

Steve interrupted her thoughts by sitting on the arm of the sofa. He peered at the laptop she held close to herself.

‘You find something?’ he asked around a bite of food.

Natasha raised her hand and closed the lid. ‘It requires a little explanation,’ she said gently. ‘I’d advise you take a proper seat for it.’

Steve frowned a little in confusion but sank into the armchair opposite her. Natasha felt her throat clam up tight. It was her most basic knee-jerk reaction:

_Don’t tell him anything._

Her face must have soured because his turned concerned.

‘What is it, Nat?’ he asked kindly.

He set aside his food to pay his full attention to her. Her throat swelled shut even tighter. She shrugged awkwardly with one shoulder.

‘I don’t really know where to start,’ she admitted.

‘Wherever you can,’ he assured her.

She smiled down at her hands. He was too good for this world. She took his advice.

‘In the Red Room,’ she began, ‘we are trained to hoard information like gold. It’s a bargaining tool, probably the best. And then information about ourselves...Well that was never to be discussed, with anyone, not even with each other.’

Natasha sighed and sat back in an imitation of relaxation. Steve remained still, attentive. She forced herself to look him in the face.

‘What I’m about to tell you is both relevant information and deeply personal. So you understand my reluctance.’

He smiled a little. ‘I think I can.’

She nodded. ‘During my little hiatus following D.C...I did a bit of soul searching. I went back to the Red Room to see if I could finally get access to my complete files. There are still bits I don’t remember from my past there. I wanted to fill in the blanks. As it turns out there was a lot I did not remember, that I still don’t remember. And he’s in it.’

‘What?’ Steve’s voice lashed out, quick as a whip.

‘He’s in my files, Steve,’ she admitted, ‘and I knew him. We fought in the Vietnam War.’

After a moment his eyes narrowed. ‘You weren’t born until 1985.’

She shook her head and reopened the laptop. ‘I was born in 1951. I had my memories wiped, much like him, on three major occasions.’ She laughed bitterly, blowing air out her nose. She turned the screen to show him her photocopied birth certificate. ‘He was the reason for two of them, I think.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Steve breathed as he scanned over her documents.

His cloying hands took the laptop from her. Feeling a little naked without it she stuck her hands between her knees. Nerves clawed at the back of her throat.

‘When I say I knew him,’ she admitted in a rush, ‘I do mean in the biblical sense.’

He paused then and looked up at her in shock. His cheeks had turned a little rosy, whether with shock or embarrassment she could not tell.

‘You...and Bucky?’ he asked stupidly.

She shrugged. ‘In 1968 and 1975 apparently. Two of the years I was wiped.’

Steve took a deep breath. ‘And it was because of him?’

‘I think so,’ she said softly. The nerves made her throat dry. ‘There isn’t too much detail in the files on our...relationship, but I did find something.’

Steve came to sit by her at her wordless gesture. She took the laptop from him and opened a prepared video file. The footage was monochrome and a little grainy, but it was clearly her sitting behind a table. Her hands were cuffed and the thick chain between them looped around a latch on the table top.

‘This was after I went AWOL on a mission in Greece in 1975,’ she explained. ‘I was missing for four months, presumed kidnapped. Until they found me in a hotel room with him.’

Before Steve could say a word Natasha hit play.

 

_The younger Natasha rattles her chains as she fights. She is trying to pull free of the restraints, half-raised from her chair. Her face is filled with anger and something else. It appears she has been crying._

_A door opens somewhere out of sight and a tall man enters the room. From the vantage point of the camera his face is obscured. He speaks in Russian._

 

Natasha typed the word ‘Translate’ for Steve’s benefit. Subtitles popped up at the bottom of the screen.

 

_‘Natalia, I am so disappointed,’ the man says gravely._

_‘Where is he?!’ she spits. ‘Where is he, you cunt?’_

_The man takes the seat opposite her, his back to the camera. Natasha tries once again to free herself._

_‘He’s just next door,’ the man says coldly. ‘His handlers will be speaking with him any moment.’_

_At that she stills. Her face fills with horror._

_‘No,’ she says. ‘No! Let me out these chains. They’ll fucking kill him! They’ll put him back in that chair! You BASTARD! LET ME GO!’_

_The man stands swiftly and slaps Natasha across the face._

_‘You stupid girl! You stupid fucking bitch! You have jeopardised everything we have worked for! And for what?! For a crush on the Winter Soldier?!’_

_‘His name is James!’ she screams back at him._

_Another slap. This time Natasha stays in her seat, head bowed and silent. The man continues._

_‘He doesn’t have a name! He doesn’t have a name or a home or a life or any fucking feelings. He is a weapon, much like you once were. And now you’ve ruined both him and you.’_

_Natasha tilts her head up quickly. ‘No,’ she protests quietly. ‘He is not ruined. Listen...listen, he’ll do anything for me. I mean it, anything. We can use that. He’ll do his missions. He’s not useless. He’ll do them for me.’_

_‘Like you would for him?’ the man sneers. ‘You sicken me.’_

_However Natasha reply is drowned out by an echoing, masculine scream. She freezes solid at the noise._

_‘DON’T!’ the scream forms words. ‘DON’T, PLEASE!’_

_Natasha slumps across the table as much as she can. A sob breaks through the audio._

_‘Please!’ she begs once the screams subside. ‘Don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt him. Hurt me, it’s my fault. You’re right, he’s a weapon, just a weapon. Don’t hurt him.’_

_‘No, no, no,’ the man hums. ‘He was a weapon until you came along and called him James. Weapons do not have names.’_

_‘His name_ is _James!’ Her anger returns. ‘That was his real name before they took it! He is a human being, you absolute monster.’_

_‘He is whatever he is told be,’ the man hisses. ‘As you shall be again, because don’t think for a second you’ll get to keep him, even if I have to open your brain myself and pull him out. You will NEVER remember him.’_

_‘That’s what you said last time,’ she spits._

_‘The difference is, Natalia, that if it doesn’t work this time I’ll put you down like the dog you are.’_

_The man stands and leaves the room. For a minute the young Natasha stares into nothing. The video cuts._

 

Steve's silence crawled up Natasha’s spine. She returned to the files.

‘I was wiped after that conversation,’ she said a little hoarsely. ‘And Ivan’s promise holds true. I don’t remember a goddamned bit of it. I don’t remember him at all, or anything up to about the mid-nineties. That was the third time they wiped me, apparently...To reestablish my entire life story.’

They sat for another moment. Suddenly Steve’s big hands took the laptop from her and pulled Natasha into a tight hug. She jumped a little in shock as his large chest pressed against her face. His hands cradled her back. His cheek rested atop her head. Gingerly she slid her arms around his middle in return, unsure of the purpose of this hug.

‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured to her. ‘I’m sorry they did that to you, took away your life. I’m sorry they hurt you.’

She laughed a little. ‘It’s okay, Steve. I’m okay.’

‘He _hit_ you,’ Steve hissed.

Her laugh turned more full. ‘You’re ridiculous.’

He squeezed her a little more tightly. Natasha took the encouragement and hugged him back more firmly.

‘And thank you,’ he said, even more softly, ‘for trying to look out for him when I couldn’t.’

Her mouth stuck open at that. She could not think of an appropriate reply considering she had no memory of ever doing so, so she just nodded.

Steve released her and smiled sadly. ‘Thank you for sharing this with me.’

Natasha shrugged. ‘I thought it might help, knowing a little more of his past. There are bits of it mentioned in here. You’ll probably be able to pick out more information than me...I think I’m a little too close to these files.’

‘As it is,’ Steve said, running a hand through his hair, ‘I was just about to stick a tack in that project.’

Natasha frowned. ‘Why? What did you find?’

‘I got a tip on Rumlow,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking of getting the band back together.’

‘Guess I could have kept my mouth shut then, huh?’

A loud scoff came from him. ‘Nat, nobody could ever accuse you of having a big mouth.’

She smiled warmly at him.

‘But after, y’know,’ he shrugged a little, ‘if you wanna join Sam and I you’d be welcome.’

Natasha shook her head. Her answer was instinctive. Finding her star-crossed Red Room lover had all the appeal of poking a sleeping dragon.

Steve frowned. ‘You don’t want to find him?’

‘I can help like this, for you, but I don’t want to track him down. I don’t even remember him.’

‘What if he remembers you?’ he challenged.

She smiled bitterly. ‘It’s ancient history, Steve. If he remembers me it will be as a girl who wanted nothing more than to win the Cold War. I’m not that person anymore.’

‘But...you guys seemed close.’ His argument had lost steam, however.

‘Moving on is what I do,’ she assured him. ‘Pretty sure he's already done the same.’

Thankfully, Steve seemed to understand. He shook out his melancholy after observing her for a moment with gentle eyes. Then he rose and went in search of take out menus, loudly blabbering about his hunger and now soggy cereal. She had no doubt, however, he would pester her about Bucky again at some later, more opportune time.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little different from the others. It is my own spin on how Wanda's power could work. If you don't like it blame the overwhelming influence of Neil Gaiman. Everything will return to normal after.

_ If you aren't the woman I think you are, then this isn't the world I thought it was. _

‘Memoirs of a Geisha’, Arthur Golden

 

Wakanda, May 2016

 

Wakanda was like something from a novel. It was too green but to be described hyperbolically, its landscapes too beautiful to be on the planet Earth, its people too regal and graceful even in stillness. Bucky felt pale, awkward and ungainly in the country. Steve seemed less intimidated than he, and spoke to the doctors with a relaxed stance. 

Perhaps it was simply that Steve was not missing a limb and being poked at by said doctors.

‘Does it hurt?’ a young man asked, eyes wide.

Bucky looked up at him, back bent and eyes scowling. ‘What?’ he asked wearily.

‘Your arm.’ The young doctor indicated with his pen where Bucky’s left arm used to be. ‘Can you feel it? Does it hurt?’

‘Yes,’ Bucky bit out. ‘It always hurts.’

Fascination washed over his features in response. His mouth opened. ‘May I ask-’

‘I don’t wanna talk about it,’ Bucky cut him off in a flat, firm tone.

The young man shut his mouth, nodded sagely, and moved away. Steve filled the hole by his side.

‘How you doing?’ he asked seriously.

Bucky let himself relax slightly. ‘I’m just peachy,’ he teased. ‘How are you? Had your boo-boos looked at?’

Steve let out a short laugh. ‘Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the stretcher.’

Bucky rolled his eyes. ‘Where are your friends?’

‘Clint and Scott took the jet back home,’ Steve explained. ‘Wanda and Sam are still here. T’Challa’s offered to give them asylum too, for a while.’

Bucky nodded. The King of Wakanda was generous indeed.

‘Are you sure about this?’ Steve blurted out after a moment.

With a tilt of his head he indicated the cryotube against the back wall. Bucky nodded again.

‘I can’t trust my own mind,’ he admitted softly. ‘Until they figure out how to get all that HYDRA crap outta me I think going under is the best thing...for all of us.’

Bucky blocked the memories of hurting the closest people he had to friends. Steve nodded, and clasped Bucky’s only intact shoulder.

‘They’ll figure it out,’ Steve said firmly.

Bucky smiled at him reassuringly. ‘It’s not so bad, really,’ he admitted. ‘I can’t hurt anyone in there, and the dreams aren’t awful.’ Steve raised a disbelieving eyebrow. ‘What? You didn’t get to dream of a redhead while you were under?’ Bucky teased.

‘A redhead?’ Steve snapped out.

Bucky shrugged. ‘Probably some kind of coping mechanism. Been dreaming of her forever, makes it fairly bearable.’

‘She got a name?’

‘It’s a dream, Steve. She’s not real.’ Bucky frowned in confusion. ‘Thought I’d be coming under way more fire for admitting this.’

Steve shook his head, looking away - the most obvious tell in the world. Bucky let it go, however. He assumed it was indeed the mocking Steve wanted to let out being holed up. He hoped Steve would not treat him like spun glass forever.

Steve’s concerned gaze was the last thing he saw before the world faded to shades of grey...to black...to red.

 

The next thing Bucky saw was Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, standing in the snow. He looked around himself numbly, blinking back the snowflakes that drifted into his eyes. He turned back to her.

‘Where are we?’ he called.

She shrugged. ‘It’s your mind.’

‘What?’

She crossed her arms and trudged towards him through the snow. She did not seem cold, only curious as she looked around. She stopped by his side.

‘I’m in your subconscious,’ she said calmly. ‘You made this place for us to speak. Think you could quit with the snow? It kinda makes it hard to see what we’re dealing with.’

‘I don’t understand. Are you saying this isn’t real?’

‘It’s real enough,’ she replied. ‘We are not ourselves here and so the world corresponds. We’re just...projections of our physical selves in here. This is just a projection of the world. It’s real, certainly, but not in the way you’re used to.’

Bucky cast his eyes around like her, and agreed the snow was irritating. At this thought it stopped. The last few flakes hit the soft white blanket and the sky cleared as if wiped clean by some unseen hand. Bucky stared up at the harsh blue light of the heavens. Around them, snow stretched in every direction until it met the harsh line of the horizon.

‘We’re really in my mind?’ he asked.

‘Yes. I think I might be able to help you deconstruct your programming.’

He turned back to her. ‘Because you can mess with minds, right? You think you can get rid of it?’

‘I can help,’ she replied serenely. ‘But I can’t do it on my own. That’s why I brought you here.’

‘Am I...dreaming?’ he asked uncertainly.

She smiled. ‘No. I think this is technically a form of astral projection but instead of someone else’s head you’ve entered the depths of your own.’

‘That doesn’t make sense.’

Wanda scowled briefly. ‘You know I can move things with my mind, right? Make nightmares into realities? Is this really so far fetched?’

‘I guess not…’ He mused upon his surroundings again. ‘So this is my mind?’

‘Your subconscious, yes, or rather your  _ unconscious _ since you’re sleeping. Where we really need to be is your temporal lobe. It’s where memories are processed, and where language is partly comprehended. Steve said your triggers were words. If they’re anywhere they’ll be there.’

‘How do we get there?’ Bucky asked.

‘I’ll get us there,’ she promised benignly. ‘After that you’ll have to identify which bits need taken out.’

Her hand extended to him. Bucky looked at her jewels and decorations a little nervously - her fingers were almost as metallic as his own left. In surprise Bucky noted he still had his metal arm in this projection of himself.

He decided not to dwell on that and took Wanda’s hand.

The scene melted and shifted and reformed like water droplets splitting and mating on a windshield. They now stood in what looked like a hospital corridor. It was long and drab and hundreds of doors sprouted from both sides, all of them shut. The corridor was so long it seemed to stretch beyond the horizon; Bucky turned; beyond the horizon is both directions.

Wanda let go of his hand and walked to a door. She peered through the little glass window pane set in it. 

‘They’re your memories,’ she explained gently. ‘Bit of them, at least. Memories aren’t all in one place.’ She floated to another door as she talked. ‘These are the roots of the memories. These rooms connect to further neurons and the deeper inside you go, the more you remember.’

‘You think my trigger words are here?’

She nodded. ‘But I don’t know them, so it’s up to you to find them.’

Bucky nodded back, feeling tense. Around him he could feel the doors begging quietly to be opened. He ignored them and focused on looking for one. Instinctively, he knew where to find it.

He and Wanda could have walked for a minute or an hour, but the door rolled up in front of him as he somehow knew it would. The door itself was propped open a little while the surroundings ones were shut. He knew it was the room that held the first word.

‘What now?’ Bucky asked quietly.

‘We destroy it,’ Wanda said confidently. ‘So it can never come back.’

‘How?’

‘However we can. I’m sure we’ll understand how once we’re inside.’

Bucky pushed open the door nervously. What confronted him was unexpected.

The room housed an army screening tent, the old kind that he himself had originally signed up in. Bucky looked down at himself to see his old 1940s uniform. He was unsure when his clothing had changed. His metal hand, however, remained. 

Shirtless men were lined up before a medical examiner. Bucky looked around for something significant. So far, everyone in the room appeared to be ignoring him.

‘What the hell is this?’ he hissed to Wanda.

‘Be patient,’ she snapped back.

Then in walked a skinny, sickly Steve Rogers. His eyes turned to the queue with determination and longing.

Bucky felt the tug of control in his head.

‘No!’ he barked.

Bucky reached out, grabbed this imaginary Steve and threw him out the door. The skinny man fought, but Bucky slammed the wooden door shut. He leaned against it heavily.

The room blew apart as if a bomb had gone off. The walls and floor exploded in perfect silence. Bucky looked around for Wanda and watched in fascination as all her shattered pieces reformed. The room followed, and reformed into an empty operating theatre. 

It was desperately quiet in this room following the bustle of the recruitment centre. He looked around. The only object in the room that drew his attention was a set of dog tags on a bloodied operating table.

‘Do whatever you feel you need,’ Wanda said calmly, reassuringly. ‘These words were forced into your head. You’ll break their power simply by interfering. They rely on you having no knowledge of their nature.’

Bucky strode to the table with confidence and picked up the dog tags. They were his own, but they were damaged and rusty. Nevertheless his heart told him to put them on, and so he did.

The room exploded once again, and again and again as Bucky disrupted the code words implanted in his head. He burned down his old house at 17 Wimborne Avenue. He forced his younger self to turn away from the sunrise outside his window on Christmas morning. He doused the flames of bodies that burned in concentration camps. He remembered his sister’s ninth birthday this time around - in reality it had slipped his mind. He protected a cat from a pack of dogs. He danced with a pretty girl and this time did not step on the hem of her dress and tear it. He battled a hydra and by tying its necks into knots to assure two more did not grow in their places. 

And finally, when the shattered room reformed and Bucky’s feet went from beneath him, he grabbed Steve’s hand in time to stop the fall.

Bucky landed on his knees outside the room, once again in the never ending corridor. Wanda crouched beside him, smiling a little. She clasped his shoulder.

‘Well done. You got them all, right?’

Bucky nodded. ‘Yeah. I got them.’

He looked over his shoulder through the open door but it was perfectly empty. It looked as though all information about the universe had been deleted behind its frame. An inky, flat blackness stared back at him. It was all gone.

He looked back at Wanda. ‘They’re gone.’

She smiled widely. ‘Then let’s get out of here.’

Bucky rose and turned to walk away with her when he spotted another door. A red door. It stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the other wooden ones. He walked towards it and it seemed to retreat from him. He tried again, but it slipped further away along the wall.

‘What is that?’ Bucky asked, pointing.

Wanda squinted. ‘It’s a memory, I think. Hold on.’ 

She reached out her hands towards it and made a pulling motion. As if her red magic had pulled the wall itself the door slid towards them. It seemed reluctant to focus in his vision, but eventually it became clear. The red door was emblazoned with a black hourglass. A heavy padlock held it shut.

‘A repressed memory,’ Wanda explained, ‘but look…’ She crouched and stuck her finger underneath it. ‘It’s got a crack. It’s probably been leaking all this time.’

‘What’s in there?’

She stood and laughed. ‘How should I know? It’s your mind. I’m just the navigator.’

He cast her a worried glance. ‘What will happen if I open it?’

‘You’ll remember.’

Bucky tugged the padlock away with his left hand and the door swung open.

 


	6. Chapter 6

_ ‘Nothing’s ever the same,’ she said. ‘Be it a second later or a hundred years. It’s always churning and roiling. And people change as much as oceans.’ _

‘The Ocean at the End of the Lane’, Neil Gaiman

 

Wakanda, August 2016

 

Natasha knew she was being coward, but arriving in the dead of night to avoid running into Barnes seemed like a better option than swanning in during the day. At least she could get one decent night’s sleep in her new Wakandan home before the shit hit the fan.

T’Challa had given her a guest suite on the same floor as the others of her team who has taken refuge there. She thanked him quietly, he smiled at her and left her to unpack. She shut the door as softly as possible, determined nobody would know she had arrived until morning.

While unpacking her toiletries in her fairly opulent private bathroom Natasha cringed to herself. It would take her a while to introduce a witch into her stealthy calculations. She turned to see Wanda sitting on her bed smiling benignly.

‘I was wondering when you would arrive,’ she said pleasantly.

‘Don’t you sleep?’ Natasha replied testily.

‘I do,’ Wanda replied, ‘in a manner of speaking.’

People failed to realise just how spooky Wanda could be on her downtime. Natasha sat down next to her on the bed.

‘There’s nowhere else for me to go,’ she admitted.

‘Welcome to the club,’ Wanda replied drily. ‘What took you so long, though? I’ve been waiting.’

Natasha knew there was no point in hiding it from Wanda. The girl could read minds. She let her confused thoughts about Barnes wash over her mind. Wanda’s head tilted as she listened.

‘I had wondered,’ she murmured, ‘if you would remember him.’

Natasha narrowed her eyes. ‘How do you know about that?’

‘I helped him break his programming,’ Wanda explained casually. ‘While I was in his head we discovered some suppressed memories. I helped him get those back too.’

It was like a punch in the chest. Natasha was sure her ribs were snapping one by one. She breathed out slowly.

‘So he remembers me?’

‘Yes,’ Wanda said simply. ‘Better than you remember him.’

‘Oh God,’ Natasha groaned. She rolled onto her stomach, pressing her face into the blankets. ‘I knew I should never have come here.’

She felt Wanda’s bejewelled hand on her shoulder. ‘You can’t run anymore,’ she said. ‘Time has caught up with you.’

‘What the hell am I going to say to him?’ Natasha wondered allowed, frustration coloured her tone. ‘I don’t even know him, I don’t remember!’

‘How should I know?’ Wanda said, standing abruptly. ‘But he will wake up if we keep talking. He’s just across the hall.’

Natasha rolled onto her side to glare at Wanda. ‘You little witch.’

Wanda grinned massively, mischief all over her expression. ‘Goodnight, Natasha.’

Natasha cursed that shit-stirring little girl and rolled straight into bed. Thankfully the lights were voice activated so she stayed in her bed sheet cocoon 'till morning.

 

Two assassins who did not want to run into each other never would. Natasha took this as a blessing as both she and Barnes oscillated around each other perfectly in their small environment, never coming into contact. It seemed he did not want to confront the past anymore than she did. She was relieved.

Unfortunately, add three nosey housemates into the equation and the delicate balance was disrupted. She and Barnes got away without meeting for three days until an intervention was launched. 

Sam cornered her in the kitchen.

‘What’s going on?’

Natasha put a finger to her chin. ‘Well, we’re international fugitives, Tony Stark is after us even if he doesn’t want to be, Britain just voted to leave the EU-’

Sam smiled. ‘You know what I’m talking about. Honestly? I’m impressed. How you have managed to avoid Bucky for so long while sharing an apartment is amazing.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘There are some trees you simply should not shake.’

‘You can’t keep this up,’ he pointed out.

‘On the contrary.’ Natasha picked up her coffee and turned to face him with a benign smile. ‘As long as he cooperates I can keep this up forever.’

‘Which is why Steve is talking to him now.’

Her heart thudded. ‘Sam,’ she spoke seriously now, ‘this doesn’t have to be done. We don’t want to talk to each other.’

‘I know and I don’t care. You two need to have it out, so come on.’

‘We don’t  _ need _ to do anything,’ she ground out.

Sam sighed. ‘He told me, Nat. You guys knew each other way back. You have history. Letting it fester is not healthy.’

She tipped her head back and groaned. ‘For God’s sake, Sam! Who cares if it’s healthy?’

‘I care. Plus, he’s been moping and it’s getting on my nerves. So come on.’

Natasha realised that the subject would never be dropped. By the look on Sam’s face he was ready to knock her out and drag her wherever she was supposed to be going. With a resigned sigh she indicated with a hand for him to lead the way.

Sam led her from the kitchen down to the outdoor terrace. She bitterly saw the logic in it. It was a kind of no man’s land, rarely used by any of them and with relative privacy. Although she was willing bet her life on all of them listening in. The heat of the sun washed over her as she stepped out.

Barnes was already there. He sat at the little wooden table, smoking a cigarette while Steve stood over his shoulder protectively. His eyes darted up to hers and away just as quickly. Reluctantly Natasha took the other seat opposite him. She resisted the urge to fiddle with her coffee cup.

Steve gave her a nod which she ignored. He stepped inside with Sam and the glass doors slid shut behind them.

Natasha crossed her arms and stared out into the thick jungle that surrounded the building. She searched desperately for something to say but words failed her. Barnes stubbed out his cigarette underfoot.

‘You could at least recognise me,’ he said hollowly.

She turned to stare at him in disbelief. He looked up at her guardedly. Suddenly anger flooded her system at his words. She wanted to smash his nose into the back of his skull.

‘ _ I _ could at least recognise  _ you?! _ ’ she snapped. ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’

‘So you do know me,’ he summarised. 

He had been testing her. She grit her teeth and looked away from him.

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t remember you. I found you in my files, that’s it.’

‘And what did you find?’

She turned to glare at him again. ‘I found a video of me crying because they took you from me, like some pathetic child. It told me all I need to know.’

He laughed a little. It was bitter. ‘What the hell did they do to you, Natalia?’

‘Don’t pretend you know me,’ she snapped. ‘You don’t. It’s been fifty years, and while you may not have changed in deep freeze I have. I am not that girl anymore.’

‘Then why did you let us go at the airport?’ he asked seriously.

‘I did that for Steve.’ She let a little of her anger go, happy to get away from the subject for a moment. ‘He once told me he could trust me to save his life. So I did.’

He smiled a little. ‘That’s exactly what she would have done. I don’t think you’ve changed at all.’

Natasha smirked back. ‘There is a difference between wiping the red from your ledger and behaving like a starry-eyed schoolgirl.’

He shrugged. ‘Like it or not you’ve always been like that. You faked your own kidnapping to liberate me, and it worked for a while. We almost made it out of Europe.’

‘You don’t seem to get that I’m a different person now,’ she hissed. ‘I am  _ not _ her.’

‘Aren’t you?’ he challenged. 

‘Why are you pretending to be him?’ She rose to his challenge. ‘Because if I cried for you you must have meant a great deal to me. You, who looked me in the face and shot me  _ twice. _ Are you really here to make amends because I don’t forgive that easily.’

He had the decency to look ashamed. ‘That wasn’t me.’

‘Yes it was,’ she confirmed. ‘And yes you weren’t in control and yes you’d probably rather have not but  _ you did it _ . Whatever shit Steve is undoubtedly filling your head with about you being blameless in all this is just that: grade A horse shit.’

‘You think I don’t know that?’ he scoffed. ‘I am the Winter Soldier whether I like it or not. I’ve accepted that.  _ You _ were the first person to tell me otherwise. You gave me a name, and taught me that I wasn’t just some weapon and I loved you for it.’

She paused for a moment. ‘Love is for children.’

He smiled at her sadly. ‘Yeah, I guess. But if it didn’t mean anything why have we been avoiding each other?’

‘I didn’t want you to think I was her,’ she murmured, ‘and I’ve never seen a point in disturbing the dead.’

He nodded. Natasha considered him for a long moment. He was handsome, she admitted, and he had a sort of kindness in his eyes. She could understand why her younger self had become entangled with him. The woman she was now, however, held nothing for him but a vague anger over her bullet wounds.

‘Okay,’ he said gently. ‘We don’t have to. We probably shouldn’t.’ 

He lit another cigarette and offered her one. She took his little olive branch and lit up. They sat in silence for a long moment.

‘I’m glad you made it out,’ he said. He voice was like water warmed by the sun.

‘And you,’ she replied gently. 


	7. Chapter 7

_ I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul. _

‘A Tale of Two Cities’, Charles Dickens

 

London, ??/??/1975

 

James watched her moving in the afternoon light. She bounced a little on her toes as she weaved through the crowds. Her hair was long and loose, it waved in the breeze. It was odd to see her as a blonde but she suited it. It made her softer somehow, yellow petals hiding all her thorns.

She had grown a little since the last time he had seen her all those years ago in the Red Room. Her hips were a little fuller, her smile more knowing than before. She passed out of sight of the window. James moved to the bed and lay down, waiting for her.

He was lucky. So lucky she had come for him and forced him to remember. He was lucky to have met Natalia at all, luckier still that she cared for him. He smiled to himself. The world was bearable with her.

She breezed into their hotel room carrying a brown paper bag that smelled amazing. Its bottom was dark with grease and his stomach rumbled. She smiled at him brightly.

‘Just for you, my dear American scum,’ she said teasingly. ‘McDonalds.’

She climbed onto the bed and put the bag between them. James kissed the back of her hand.

‘You know just how to make me smile, you commie cunt.’

She laughed and kissed him on the lips. 

They ate on the bed greedily. Neither could risk too many outings for food with all the surveillance in London. James finished a burger in three bites and started on another. Natalia wolfed down her chicken nuggets and fries.

With a clumsy finger James turned on the television at the end of their bed. A film was on. In it three people stood in a kitchen singing, all bright colours and smiles. They watched it as they ate. Natalia nodded her head along to the music.

Once finished Natalia licked her fingers clean and cuddled into James’s side. He slid an arm around her. It was natural, he found, to hold her. He did not have to protect her - she could do that herself - but she could not hold herself. That was his job. His very best job.

‘Who won that war anyway?’ he blurted out. ‘The one we fought in the jungle.’ The question had been irritating him.

‘The North,’ Natalia replied. ‘Us. It ended just earlier this year, actually.’

‘Huh. When’s the next war?’

She shrugged. ‘My money's on The Union against America. That pot’s been boiling over for years.’

He nodded. ‘Yeah, I can see that.’

Natalia shifted against him to look up into his face. He took the moment to admire her porcelain beauty - her features looked painted on they were so perfect. Her blue eyes were clear, her lips full, her cheeks rosy and happy in the heat of their room.

‘I think we should go to America,’ she said steadily. ‘I think we should take you home.’

He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean,’ she closed her eyes briefly, ‘that you should be back home. They’ll pardon you, I know they will. Then you’ll be free.’

‘What about you?’ he demanded.

‘I can hide,’ she murmured, eyes downcast. ‘Maybe I can seek asylum, but they’ll probably put me in jail. I don’t know.’

‘We’re not going if you’re going to end up on death row,’ he said firmly, a little angrily. 

‘But you’ll be out,’ she argued looking up again. ‘Forever.’

He shook his head. ‘Do you think I’m willing to risk you to achieve that? I’m not. I won’t. And you can’t make me.’

She bowed her head and pressed her face into his chest. ‘You’re too good for this world, James,’ she murmured.

‘Not really,’ he said softly back.

He kissed the top of her head and then squeezed his cheek against her yellow hair.

  
  


Wakanda, August 2016

 

Bucky woke to the sensation of shaking. He lashed out at whoever’s hands were on his shoulders, swinging his left arm out wildly. Somebody caught it firm.

‘Woah, hey, Bucky! It’s me!’

‘Steve?’

Bucky peered into the absolute darkness. He saw a hint of Steve’s blonde hair. There was a moment of fumbling and Steve switched on the bedside lamp. He smiled kindly at Bucky. His hands slipped away from Bucky’s arm. In the dim light the metal gleamed. Even months later it still looked brand new.

‘Hey,’ he said softly. ‘Just a dream, pal.’

Bucky laughed mockingly. He pushed himself up into a sitting position.

‘No, it wasn’t,’ he admitted bitterly. ‘It was a memory. Was I shouting?’

‘No.’ Steve made an awkward face. ‘You were, uh, crying. I heard it from down the hall.’

Bucky was not surprised. Swiftly he wiped the tears from his cheeks and took a deep breath. 

‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll keep it down.’

‘Do you wanna talk about it?’ Steve asked.

He always asked. These past months Steve always asked and Bucky always said no. This time, however, perhaps it was something Steve would understand. Bucky pulled his knees up protectively. Steve sat on the end of the bed where his feet had been.

‘Did Peggy remember you?’ Bucky asked tentatively. 

Steve seemed thrown by the question. He took a moment to respond. ‘Um, yeah a little. She forgot a lot, she was sick. But she knew me.’

Bucky nodded. ‘Natalia doesn’t know me, and it shouldn’t be an issue because it’s literally been half a century but I...I remember everything from after I fell. She was the  _ one _ good thing in all of it.’ He shrugged in false bravado. ‘And now she looks right through me.’

Steve put on a brave smile but it fell flat. ‘It’s not her fault,’ he reminded Bucky. ‘But I know how you feel. Not that long ago it was you who couldn’t remember me.’

‘Difference is she doesn’t want to remember me,’ Bucky argued softly. ‘There’s no point in trying to be together because being together is what got us caught. It made us sloppy. Being together is what got her wiped. No good can come of it.’

‘Those were different times,’ Steve said. ‘You’re not under their control anymore, either of you.’

Bucky had no good answer to that. ‘I’ve been seeing her face everywhere for fifty years,’ he admitted. ‘And now she’s  _ here _ and she doesn’t want me.’

A sob rattled its way up from his chest and tumbled out his mouth. He clasped his hands over the back of his head. Steve’s arm settled around his shoulders. Bucky shook for a long moment as he fought to get himself under control.

‘I’m sorry,’ Steve whispered to him over and over. ‘I’m sorry. You both deserved better.’

‘Well it’s not like I can blame her,’ Bucky croaked. ‘I shot her twice. I strangled her.’

‘That wasn’t you-’

‘But it  _ was _ me.’ Bucky raised his head to look at Steve hard. ‘It was me who shot you and her and anyone else I was told to. And I’m so glad you can forgive me but how can she? She was a girl and I let her be beaten and wiped when I swore nobody would touch her ever again. Who could forgive that?’

‘She could,’ Steve campaigned. ‘She will. Natasha...She puts up a hard front but when it comes down to it she protects those closest to her. Don’t give up hope, not yet.’

‘Ah, Steve,’ Bucky muttered, ‘I gave up hope a long time ago.’

 

In the end it was a peach. 

Wanda had gone rummaging around in her head two days prior. She claimed to have unlocked the memories but that they would take time to return. Natasha waited patiently for two days. Until she found herself staring at a peach, its skin splitting and oozing from the pressure of her fingers around it. Her heart thudded painfully.

Slowly Natasha loosened her fingers. They were sticky with juice. It was dripping from her hand to the kitchen floor. She heaved in a breath that caught in her throat. Her mouth was dry. She opened her hand and dropped the ruined peach into the garbage disposal. Methodically she washed her hands and mopped up the mess on the floor.

A single peach brought every memory of her life rushing back.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the extremely late upload. The end of this story was putting up a fight and I didn't want to post chapters I may have had to edit. However, we have made it through the other side and this fic is nearly written in its entirety. Enjoy, Snark.

_ A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended. _

‘Atonement’, Ian McEwan

 

 

Wakanda, September 2016

 

Guilt was a many faceted thing. It turned up everywhere. Natasha saw it in her breakfast, in her shoes, in the glass of her bedroom window, and most especially in his face. How his face haunted her.

She knew coming to Wakanda had been a bad idea.

Guilt, above all else, was to be processed. She had so much more red in her ledger than she previously imagined. She had to wipe it out.

It was not just the missions she had forgotten or the blood she had shed to become the Black Widow. Those were old pains she had repented as best she could for. She had saved the world twice now, that had to count for something. And she  _ had _ let him and Rogers go at the airport…

But it in no way made up for her original betrayal. Natasha bowed her head and closed her eyes and saw it all over again, projected on the back of her eyelids. She saw herself assemble the tranquilliser gun, she saw herself shoot him from their hotel room balcony. She saw herself dragging him to the extraction site through the Vietnamese jungle.

She saw herself perpetuate the enslavement of James Buchanan Barnes. The same man she had once thought of as  _ her _ James.

Natasha wrestled with the horror that swelled in her chest. How could one person’s ledger contain  _ so much red? _

Could she even wipe it out?

 

‘Steve?’ Natasha murmured.

‘Mm?’ He did not look up from the book he read. He was sprawled in the Wakandan sunshine by the rooftop pool. Natasha cast her eyes about but he was alone.

‘Can I talk to you?’

Steve rested the book on his chest and looked at her with a small smile. ‘Of course.’

Natasha took the sun lounger next to his and sat. She felt awkward with her guilt - it was like a too small shoe. Steve sat up to mirror her, elbows on knees and back hunched. Natasha resisted the urge to worry her lip with her teeth.

‘What’s up?’ he prompted.

‘I have been remembering some things,’ she forced herself to admit.

She paused as his expression brightened. She wished he was not so expressive. Atonement was difficult enough without the disappointment about to show on Steve’s face.

‘And...I remember him,’ she continued, ‘and everything else. And I don’t know if he told you but I…’ She looked away from him, unable to bear his eyes. ‘In 1968 I stopped him from escaping. I shot him with a tranq dart and dragged him back to the Red Room, and I just feel you should know how badly I feel about it.’

Steve was quiet for a long moment. ‘Why are you telling me this?’ he asked.

She turned back to face him. ‘I know you’re looking for them, the ones who controlled the Winter Soldier I mean. Turns out I’m one of them. I’m telling you because I’ve picked up this terrible habit of being truthful with my friends. Pretty sure I picked it up from you actually.’ She smiled wryly. ‘I just thought you’d want to know that I was involved. I didn’t want you to think I was...keeping it a secret.’

Steve returned her smile a little. ‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that if you keep a secret it’s for a good reason. Thank you for telling me, but that’s actually in your files.’

‘What?’ Her voice came out like a crack of thunder. Her eyes widened on his.

‘Bucky’s post-mission physical revealed scratch-marks along his back where he had been dragged across some distance. And they found no trace of your blood on any of his weapons despite the fact you claimed he attacked you. They knew your story was fake.’

Natasha sighed. ‘So you knew all this time?’

‘Hey,’ Steve interrupted her pity party, ‘I knew you did it for a good reason. I know you weren’t the best person back then but I don’t believe you’ve ever been a  _ bad _ person. After that video you showed me how could I think you’d done it out of malice or on some sort of power trip? Correct me if I’m wrong but you darted him to protect him, right?’

She nodded. ‘I didn’t want him to be killed.’

‘Exactly.’ Steve lay back again, looking a little triumphant. ‘Pretty sure Bucky knows that too or he wouldn’t be so mopey.’

Natasha snorted and lay down on her own lounger. Carefully she untied her sarong wrap so her legs and stomach could soak up the sun. 

‘Mopey,’ she mocked. ‘Pretty sure that’s called processing seventy years of atrocities.’

‘Mm, nope,’ Steve denied. ‘He’s all hung up on you.’

Natasha smiled to herself, a little of the guilt leaving her. ‘Well, I am a fantastic lay.’

 

‘Do you want a cigarette?’

Natasha looked up at James, whom she had irritatingly come to call in her own head over the past few days. He looked down at her hopefully, one hand outstretched holding two cigarettes. She considered him for a moment and he shrugged.

‘Nobody else here smokes. It’d be nice to have company.’

She smiled a little and took a cigarette from him. ‘Sure.’

They returned to small veranda where they had reunited. Natasha sat down at the little table and lit up, James took the other seat. Around them the jungle murmured and swayed in a light breeze.

‘It’s like Vietnam,’ Natasha blurted out. ‘Do you remember?’

He nodded. He looked out into the wide green leaves also, eyes glazing over in memory. Natasha bowed her head as her guilt bubbled back up to the surface. She took a deep drag.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said on the exhale. 

To her surprise, he laughed. Her head snapped up and she saw him grinning at her,  _ grinning. _ She scowled back.

‘Natalia,’ he said through his wide smile, ‘if anyone should apologise it’s me. I shot you.  _ Twice _ .’

‘There’s a difference and you know it,’ she snapped. ‘I wasn’t brainwashed.’

‘Yes you were,’ he denied casually. ‘Sure they didn’t strap you to a chair or pump you full of drugs but you  _ were _ brainwashed. Conditioned, if you prefer. You don’t have to pretend with me.’

_ You don’t have to pretend with me. _

The phrase repeated itself in her head. There was a distinct truth to it. He, of all the people on the planet, understood what it was to be unmade over and over. What it was to be put back together bit by bit only to be smashed apart again. She looked at him with renewed respect. Against all the odds: here they both sat, safe and free.

He looked back at her, his smile no more than a faint curve of his lips now. His eyes were soft. He ducked his head as he began to speak.

‘Do you think you can forgive me?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’ The answer left her instinctively. 

His eyes cut through her as they raised. She realised now she had been a little cruel in avoiding him. It had been a lonely time adjusting to a new life amongst Clint and the other Agents when she had defected. She had just left him to it amongst Steve and Sam, the two people most sure of themselves in the world. 

The itch in her heart was scratched as she leaned across the table to cover his new metal hand with her own. She spoke with truth and certainty.

‘You’re a good man, James.’

He smiled wryly, but his palm turned upwards and he hooked his fingers around hers.

‘Not really, no,’ he denied, ‘but you’re the only one who understands that.’

Natasha squeezed his fingers and released them. A little more of her guilt shed away. She relaxed back in her chair and flicked ash into the air. James copied her, his expression a little worried. His brows pinched together slightly.

‘Stark called this morning,’ he said. ‘Called Steve, I mean.’

Natasha sat up straighter. It was the first she heard of it.

‘He wants a truce. Wants you all back on your compound.’

Natasha’s anger fizzed a little. ‘On what conditions?’

‘He’s offering full pardon for all of you in return for my standing trial.’

‘And The Accords?’ 

‘He’s pushing for them to be repealed.’

She sighed angrily. ‘I can’t believe that dumbass. What did Steve say?’

‘Steve told him to get fucked. But I’m pretty sure he’s meeting with T’Challa now to work something out with The Accords.’

‘And your trial?’ Nerves clawed at her chest from the inside.

James shrugged. ‘He doesn’t want it. I don’t really want it either, but...There’s not really another solution. Everyone knows my face now. I can’t just...take up arms with Captain America without it being established I’m not a danger. And maybe I deserve punishment, I don’t know, but if it gets us all out of here and keeps the world a bit safer. Well, I can’t really argue with that.’

Nor could Natasha. She knew Steve would argue with it, loudly and at length, but she could not. Perhaps James did have to stand trial even if he didn’t deserve it. Maybe he could escape an unjust punishment.

Her mind began ticking over with thoughts, each more rapid than the previous. She took a last drag and stamped out her cigarette.

‘You’re going to have a trial in New York,’ she said firmly. James looked at her in bewilderment as she began planning. ‘It’s your home state and there’s no death penalty. We will have to ride your war hero status for all it’s worth. And I’ll be  _ fucked _ if Tony Stark doesn’t make a public announcement that he was wrong to split us all up, and wrong for trying to kill you. We discredit him and his testimony won’t mean shit. Where’s Steve? We need to get this ball rolling.’

James raised an eyebrow. ‘Didn’t know you were so desperate for me to stand trial.’

She scoffed. ‘I told you in ‘75, didn’t I? They’ll pardon you and this time we can  _ both _ walk free.’

The way his eyes lit up was practically angelic. Natasha wrestled with the strong urge to kiss him then and there. He really was devastatingly handsome. 

He stood, throwing away his cigarette.

‘I hope you know a good lawyer,’ he said, a little desperately.

She smirked. ‘The best.’


	9. Chapter 9

_ If you but knew the flames that burn in me which I attempt to beat down with my reason. _

Alexander Pushkin

 

New York, November 2016

 

‘Natasha!’ Pepper cried from the doorway. She clung to the handle with one hand and clutched her heart with the other. ‘You scared the life out of me! How did you get in my office?!’

Natasha smiled. ‘Your secretary let me in.’

Pepper took a moment to recover from the shock. Slowly she stepped into the office. The door swung shut behind her in silence. Natasha adjusted herself in the comfortable armchair.

‘I didn’t know you were back in the States,’ Pepper breathed, still a little winded.

She shrugged. ‘Technically, I’m not. Don’t go telling Tony.’

Pepper drew herself upright. ‘Tony and I aren’t together anymore.’

Natasha raised an eyebrow. ‘Right. So you just suck his dick for fun now?’

Pepper huffed and walked around her desk. ‘It’s not that easy,’ she argued, eyes averted. ‘And how do you know about that anyway?’

‘I didn’t.’

Natasha simply smiled again from across the glass-topped table. Pepper sighed dramatically before sitting down.

‘Alright!’ she admitted. ‘I went over to see how Rhodey was getting on and one thing led to another and...well, like you put it. But we are  _ not _ back together.’

Natasha fiddled with the hem of her dress. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have come to you for relationship advice then.’

Pepper brightened instantly. Her perfect teeth exposed themselves in a wide smile. Natasha averted her eyes this time, but Pepper’s hands drumming on the table drew her attention back.

‘Oh, who is it?’ she asked eagerly. ‘Oh! It’s Steve, isn’t it?’

Natasha wrinkled her nose. ‘ _ Steve? _ Are you mad?’

‘Oh, please! Like you haven’t thought about it.’

‘It’s not Steve,’ Natasha insisted. ‘Jesus. That’d be like...fucking my cousin or something.’

‘Then who?’

Natasha bit back a sigh. She forced herself to meet Pepper’s gaze. Despite the woman’s deep and concerning delight in Natasha’s sex life, Pepper was one of the most level-headed people she knew. Surely there would be some advice to follow the squealing.

‘It’s Barnes,’ she admitted tightly. ‘It’s turned into a whole... _ thing _ .’

Pepper’s delicate brow furrowed. ‘Barnes? As in  _ Bucky Barnes? _ ’

‘The one and only.’

Natasha gave Pepper the rundown, starting back in 1968. Pepper sat quietly throughout, pensive. Natasha resisted the urge to fidget as she came to a close.

‘...now I guess we are sort of friends? I don’t know. It’s been a very awkward few months.’

‘Do you still, y’know, want him?’ Pepper asked, diving to the heart of the question in an instant.

‘Of course I do!’ Natasha admitted. She rested her forehead on the table top in despair. ‘There’s a reason we’ve been drawn to each other all this time and it wasn’t just desperation for human interaction. We’re like two bits of a puzzle, we just  _ work, _ and it’s infuriating because neither of us want it!’

‘Why not?’

Natasha raised her head and narrowed her eyes slightly. ‘There’s nothing that makes you more vulnerable than other people,’ she said. ‘That vulnerability nearly got us both killed  _ twice _ . It’s not a good idea to invite it in again.’

Pepper rolled her eyes. ‘So you’re both too paranoid to let your guards down, is that it? Of all the horse shit excuses, Natasha, that has to be the  _ shittiest  _ and  _ most equine. _ ’

Natasha sat up straight, a little stunned. ‘Did you not hear me? We nearly died.’

‘You nearly die every time you leave the house!’ Pepper argued. ‘And what’s the point of risking your life every turn and corner if you don’t have somebody to do it for? The reason you’re drawn to each other is because you  _ like _ being together. And the dangers that existed back then don’t exist for you now. There’s no earthly reason why you two should not be together, excepting your own stupidities.’

Natasha huffed. ‘You’re simplifying it. Besides, we tried to kill each other.’

‘I thought you said you two had some big heart-to-heart about that? Don’t bullshit me, Nat. You’re not with him because you’re scared.’

Natasha glared. ‘Scared of what?’

Pepper raised her eyebrows as high as they could go. ‘Scared of having a real relationship, of actually committing yourself to another person, of allowing them to hurt you not physically but emotionally. Shall I go on?’

‘I’ve had relationships before.’

‘Disastrous relationships,’ Pepper corrected. ‘Remember that lawyer? All you guys did was fight. And Alexei? Do you want to go into that?’

Natasha crossed her arms tightly. The truth was that Pepper had hit the nail on the head. It was an uncomfortable truth Natasha did not want to confront. James made her vulnerable in ways she could not protect with any amount of skill or body armour.

‘Look,’ Pepper said firmly, ‘life could be a lot simpler than you’re making it. That’s all I’m saying.’

‘Every cell in my body  _ knows _ that it’s a bad idea,’ Natasha replied.

‘Relationships  _ are _ a bad idea,’ Pepper muttered, ‘but we do it anyway because we’re human.’

‘If this goes wrong I’m going to blame you,’ she hissed.

Pepper laughed loudly. ‘I can’t  _ wait _ to see you in a relationship, ha! Oh it’s going to be like watching a dog walk on its hind legs.’

‘I didn’t say I’m going to do it,’ Natasha objected. ‘I’ll consider it to get you to shut up, but I haven’t decided.’

‘Do you think he’ll take you dancing? That’s what they used to do in the old days, right?’

‘Stop it.’

‘Maybe he’ll bring you flowers and a ring and you’ll get married and raise some assassin babies!’

Natasha fought the laughter in her stomach. The idea was too ridiculous for her to even be mad. ‘Stop it!’ she called once more.

‘And you’ll polish your knives together and you’ll make him pancakes in the morning and he’ll bring you coffee in bed just the way you like it and-’

‘Stop!’ Natasha cried, laughter filling spilling out. ‘This is  _ James _ . When he wanted to be romantic he wouldn’t hit me too hard in training!’

Pepper cackled madly. ‘I can’t wait. You two are going to be sickeningly adorable, I can see it now.’

‘Go to hell, Potts.’

 

Bucky attempted to swallow his nerves and failed. So far he had managed to keep himself fairly well balanced. Sneaking into countries in the backs of cargo planes was not exactly foreign to him. Nor was hiding out, creeping from place to place in order to maintain a cover. 

Meeting with a lawyer was very, very new.

‘Relax,’ Steve urged him calmly. 

‘What if they don’t take the case?’ Bucky snapped. ‘We’re fucked.’

‘They’ll take the case,’ Steve soothed. ‘Natasha recommended them. They’re good guys. Plus, their law firm benefits from the publicity. They’ll take the case.’

Bucky shook his head. They would have to be crazy to take on defending the Winter Soldier.

A knock came at the door. They had been staying in one of Natasha’s safe houses for the past week, and it was not exactly an easy place to find. Bucky had expected them to call from the abandoned subway station for further directions. Steve stood up from the rickety table and answered the door.

Two men and a woman entered. The first man was stocky, with light hair and a benign smile. The second was a tall, blind man who looked entirely more ruffled than one expected of a lawyer. The woman was the only one who looked effortlessly professional. Her blonde hair was tied up tight behind her head, her dress neat and tidy. She smiled at Steve shyly.

‘Captain Rogers,’ the first man said with a wide grin. ‘A pleasure to meet you. I’m Foggy Nelson, this is my partner, Matt Murdock, and our lovely associate, Karen Page.’

Bucky’s mind boggled as to why Natasha would send a group of the most mismatched people on Earth to defend him in the trial for his freedom.

‘Come in,’ Steve urged. ‘Glad you found the place.’

‘I’ve, uh, been here before,’ Matt explained cagily. ‘Smells like she got rid of the bats, though.’

‘Unfortunately, we had to get rid of the bats,’ Steve muttered. ‘This is Bucky.’

Bucky stood and shook the three hands presented to him. Karen was the first to sit. She took out a pad of paper and a pen for note taking. Bucky sat again, Steve beside him. Foggy helped Matt into one of the badly in need of repair chairs.

‘So,’ Matt began, ‘you’re going to hand yourself in?’

Bucky nodded before realising that was useless to a blind man. ‘Yes. I want to clear my name.’

‘Well, you’ve come to the right people,’ Foggy assured him proudly. ‘We kind of specialise in taking the cases nobody else would touch.’

‘That’s what Natasha said,’ Bucky replied. ‘I’m glad.’

‘Yes, she did brief me on the phone, but do you mind explaining it all from your perspective? I’m afraid we are going to need some gory details in order to build a case.’

‘Wait,’ Foggy interrupted before Bucky could begin to speak. ‘Who briefed you?’

Matt coughed and shifted uncomfortably. ‘Natasha.’

‘ _ Natasha? _ ’ he repeated incredulously. He leaned into Matt’s side to whisper harshly. ‘Are you out of your mind? This place is probably rigged to blow!’

‘Relax,’ Matt assured him. 

‘Relax?’ Bucky picked up the quiet hisses easily. From the sour look on Steve’s face so did he. ‘If that crazy psycho bitch has sent us down into the sewers to die, I swear to God-’

‘Don’t talk about her like that,’ Bucky said flatly.

The lawyers stopped and looked at him oddly, putting the pieces together in their minds. Foggy dropped his head back and looked up at the peeling paintwork on the ceiling.

‘Great, there’s two of them.’

‘Natasha recommended you two for the job,’ Steve interrupted harshly. ‘She is also a good friend, and in case you have forgotten she has saved the world once or twice. I won’t have her disrespected.’

‘Sorry,’ Foggy Nelson replied earnestly. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that when Matt gets within a five hundred foot radius of any woman with morally questionable character I’m usually the one who suffers.’

‘Let’s just stick to the case,’ Matt said. ‘Sergeant Barnes, if you would.’

‘Where do you want me to start?’ Bucky asked, letting his curiosity slide for later rekindling.

‘How about the beginning?’ Matt prompted with a kind smile. ‘Karen, please take notes.’

Bucky took a deep breath and sighed. ‘I guess, if you want the whole story, it began in the Alps…’

 

‘Natasha Romanoff,’ Tony Stark greeted her in a mock formal fashion, not bothering to move from his desk or even look up at her. ‘As I live and breathe!’

‘Hello, Tony,’ she greeted warmly. Her high heels clicked loudly on the polished floor as she crossed the room towards him. ‘Long time no see.’

He hit enter and finally turned his face to smile up at her. ‘How was hiding?’

‘Thrilling,’ she replied dryly. Natasha sank into the seat opposite him. ‘How was saving the world without us?’

‘Ugh.’

‘That great?’ 

Natasha did not imagine trying to defend the world with Vision and Spiderman to have been easy. Vision was cryptic at best and wantonly destructive at worst, and Spiderman seemed barely out of diapers. With Rhodes out of the game Tony had not had a soldier among them. 

He smirked at her coolly. ‘I suppose you enjoyed my very public “please come back I love you” speech?’

‘It brought a tear to my eye, Tony.’

‘Whatever. Enough niceties, let’s get this over with.’

‘As flattered as I am, Tony, I still don’t see why you’re signing the Compound over to me if you’re going to be footing the bill anyway.’

Natasha considered it once again. She had been deeply surprised to receive the call from Tony the previous night. He had explained his intentions to leave the Avengers Compound and take up permanent residence in Stark Tower. In doing so he wished the sign the rights to the Compound over to her.

Tony gave a hefty sigh. ‘Because you were the only one to see the danger before it struck. You played both sides, and at first I thought it was because you’re a dirty spy but it’s not. It’s because you’re as impartial as they come. If anything like this rears its ugly head again you’re the only person I’d trust to stop it before it began. I just don’t trust myself to see it like you do.’

Natasha was quiet for a moment. She cast her eyes over the sheets of paper littering his desk - at the top of them sat a deed. 

‘Thank you, Tony,’ she replied earnestly. She looked into his eyes. 

He nodded. ‘No problem. Let’s do this.’

The Vision arrived promptly, sliding through the wall as if it was made of nothing. He smiled benignly at Natasha.

‘Miss Romanoff,’ he greeted with a tilt of his head. ‘It is good to see you again.’

‘You too.’ She smiled back.

‘I believe you require a notary?’ he addressed them both.

Natasha signed every scrap of paper shoved under her nose by Tony and the Vision, after thoroughly reading them. Every single one was fair. There was even a contract stating Tony would be fully responsible for all the Compound’s expenses. She signed that one more eagerly than the rest.

‘And we’re done!’ Tony announced, finishing his signature with a flourish. ‘You’re officially the owner of a multi-million dollar superhero hotel.’

Natasha smiled. ‘You really don’t have to go back to the Tower,’ she assured him.

Tony’s eyes clouded. ‘I do. I can’t stay here...not with  _ him _ .’

Of course Tony had figured out the only place James would be allowed to be held was the Compound. Natasha was not surprised by that, only by his gesture of forgiveness. Many better people would not give up a home to the man who killed their parents. But Tony had a compassionate streak, she knew. It did not show very often but when it did it shone brightly.

‘You’re still a part of the team,’ Natasha warned him as they stood. 

He smiled and laughed. ‘Guess you can’t quit being a superhero. Just think of me as semi-retired.’

‘Pepper will be happy,’ she comforted him.

They allowed each other a slightly stiff hug - neither he nor she were big huggers. But a little warmth passed between them, and Natasha felt her heart lighten. Perhaps all could be well following the Civil War.


	10. Chapter 10

_ In the desert there is no sign that says, Thou shalt not eat stones. _

Sufi Proverb, in 'The Handmaid's Tale', Margaret Atwood

 

New York, February 2017

 

Bucky resisted the urge to keep his head bowed, his eyes averted from the judge and jury. Shame had washed through him entirely. He felt no one should see his face. But his lawyers insisted he kept his head up, his hands clasped in his lap and his expression guilty. The jury had to see that he was sorry. 

The guilty expression was not difficult to muster. 

‘Sergeant Barnes, if you would?’ Matt Murdock invited him. 

Foggy Nelson took the liberty of directing Bucky to the witness stand. Bucky tried not to let the chains around his wrists rattle too much as he walked. He sat down carefully. A bible was shoved in front of him. As instructed he placed on hand on it and raised the other.

‘Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?’

‘I do,’ he replied clearly.

‘Sergeant,’ Matt Murdock began, ‘when did you join the army?’

Bucky’s heart thumped as he acknowledged the sea of eyes upon him. He searched frantically for the pairs that would calm him. Steve sat front and centre, looking tired but determined. Beside him was Natalia. Her eye was calm, her expression gentle. She nodded to him subtly.

‘1941,’ Bucky replied.

‘May I ask why?’

It seemed a silly question but would give an answer in Bucky’s favour. 

‘The Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor,’ Bucky explained. ‘The nation was in shock, the need to act was strong. The army advertised for new recruits. I was 21 at the time and fully eligible, so I enlisted. They showed footage from Germany and the camps and I just thought...I couldn’t sit back and do nothing. I wanted to help.’

Natalia nodded again in approval.

She had been a significant part of building his case. Natalia simply had a knack for manipulating people with words, and while Matt always dialed her suggestions back every time she suggested bending the truth her insight had proved valuable. She knew how to tug on the nation’s heartstrings. 

She had also been an undeniable comfort to Bucky through the past few months. His trial had been moved up due to the number of thankfully unsuccessful assassination attempts on his person. Natalia had appointed herself a kind of bodyguard for him, alongside Steve. Between them nobody touched Bucky. Nelson and Murdock managed to get the trial advanced to ‘settle public anxiety around Sergeant Barnes’ innocence’. Bucky could not argue with that. Being shot at tended to set off the Winter Soldier inside him.

‘Could you describe the events that followed your accident in 1945?’

Bucky frowned heavily. ‘What I remember after falling is still a little jumbled. I remember losing my arm upon impact. I remember being dragged somewhere by my feet. What I remember most clearly is Dr. Zola. He was the one who gave me the metal arm. He was the one who had me frozen until he needed me. I don’t know if he was responsible for messing with my brain, I don’t remember that. But the memories are so blank and sparse that someone must have been doing something. I remember putting up a fight at first. By the end of it I don’t remember feeling anything at all.’

‘The reason Sergeant Barnes does not clearly remember what happened following his abduction by HYDRA is because they brought in specialists,’ Murdock announced. Foggy held up an old file, tarnished but still legible. The bailiff brought it to the judge for examination. ‘My partner has just handed over files salvaged from Department X, a Russian deep science division. They had been experimenting with mind altering technology for some time prior. HYDRA consulted with them on the Winter Soldier project. If my partner would care to read some of their method aloud?’

Foggy Nelson stood, straightening his jacket, and read from a photocopy.

‘This is from the attending doctor’s notes,’ he announced before beginning. ‘“Subject Barnes was not an easy case. He resisted the treatment throughout its administration. In order to calm him to perform the procedure it was necessary to administer diamorphine (that’s heroin to you and me) to stop the patient struggling. This itself caused problems to occur as the patient often developed breathing problems and was once resuscitated. It appeared the subject suffered from a poor reaction to the anesthetic. Eventually Dr Zola and I developed, through much trial and error, a system of tandem doses of diamorphine and an opiate inhibitor to keep the subject conscious through the produce, a necessity for its success, but docile enough to attach the equipment to the subject’s temples. Luckily this also created a state of dysphoria, causing the subject to become alienated from his own self. After three months of memory wipes it seems the subject is no longer James Buchanan Barnes. Our next step is to install programming for the Winter Soldier.”’

Silence fell over the courtroom, cold and uncomfortable. Bucky tried to suppress the flashing images behind his eyes. Both Steve and Natalia were hard faced now. Bucky ducked his head automatically but brought it up again. As much as he hated it people needed to see his anguish.

‘I think it is quite evident, your honor,’ Murdock began, ‘that from the beginning, Sergeant Barnes did not want to abandon or betray his country in any way.’

 

-

 

‘Mr. Barnes,’ the prosecution began, ‘exactly how many people have you killed?’

It was clear he was not messing around. Hard, cold eyes confronted Bucky. He shifted a little uncomfortably. However, he had been prepared for this.

‘Do you want me to include the Nazis I fought in the war?’ Bucky asked.

‘No,’ the lawyer replied sourly.

‘I don’t know the exact number,’ Bucky admitted. ‘While my memories have returned some of them are still blurry. I also did not keep a tally.’

‘Did you kill Nick Fury?’

‘I did shoot Nick Fury,’ Bucky admitted, ‘I did not-’

‘Did you shoot Agent Romanoff?’

‘Yes, but-’

‘And did you or did you not shoot Captain Rogers?  _ Supposedly _ your oldest friend.’

‘Yes.’

‘And yet you claim to be not guilty.’

‘I do,’ Bucky defended himself, ‘because not guilty is not the same as innocent.’ He continued talking rapidly to cut off the other man. ‘I am not claiming to be innocent. What I did was horrible, but I had no choice in the matter. I am not guilty because had I the ability I would  _ not _ have killed anyone, but nevertheless it happened. And I wish every day it had not happened by my hand.’

Bucky felt tears of anger and guilt in his eyes. He let them well there for a moment before rubbing them away with the heel of his hand. He sat back in his chair, unaware he had leaned forward in his rant.

‘Barnes, do you truly believe that?’ the prosecutor questioned. ‘Or is it just a front to get the jury on your side? May I remind you you are under oath.’

‘I do believe that,’ Bucky replied. ‘I believe rationally that becoming the Winter Soldier was not my fault, but I still carry the guilt of those actions. I remember killing my friends, shooting my loved ones. And try as I might I cannot separate myself from the weapon I was made into. I am pleading not guilty because I believe the only chance I have to atone is to use these skills to protect the people I have so harmed before. If you let me go I will spend the rest of my life protecting those I once, unwillingly, harmed. It would be my privilege to fight for this nation again.’

‘Do you feel you can adequately pay your debt to society in this way?’ the prosecutor continued. ‘Not in a jail cell where you can no more harm atop that which you have already caused?’

‘I don’t believe I can ever adequately pay my debt to society,’ Bucky admitted. ‘At the very least I can use my skills to save a few lives. In a cell I can do nothing to help.’

‘You can also do nothing to harm. Is it not true that a series of trigger words can set off the Winter Soldier?’

‘Not anymore,’ Bucky argued. ‘Wanda Maximoff deconstructed my programming. The Winter Soldier is dead without it.’

Not true, of course. Bucky could call on the soldier any time he liked. The soldier was, after all, simply a set of skills. With Bucky at the helm he could use the most powerful part of him any way he wished.

‘Really? Because I have those words right here, Barnes.’

Despite his objection Bucky felt himself pale. Steve rocketed out his seat, and was pulled back down by Natalia. She hissed in his ear. Bucky’s lawyers both stood.

‘Objection!’ Murdock called. ‘In the case Sergeant Barnes’ coding is not fully erased it is too dangerous to read those words aloud.’

‘Sergeant Barnes just assured us he is no longer a danger,’ the judge replied coolly. ‘Objection overruled.’

Bucky looked up at the judge, trying not to convey his look of horror. Steve stood again, only to be pulled back down by Natalia. He looked at them both, heart thumping, as the words began.

‘ _ Longing _ ,’ the prosecutor began. He must have been practicing, his Russian accent was decent. ‘ _ Rusted, seventeen, daybreak _ …’ He paused to glance up at Bucky.

To Bucky’s eternal joy he felt no shift in his brain. His lips popped open in surprise. Ordinarily he saw flashes of light behind his eyes, and a piercing pain behind his temples. Now, he felt nothing. The prosecutor’s eyebrows knitted together.

‘ _ Furnace, nine, benign, homecoming, one, freight car… _ ’

A moment of silence echoed around the room. Bucky let out a relieved sigh and allowed a small smile to grace his face. Matt Murdock smiled brilliantly.

‘It would seem,’ he said, ‘that the Winter Soldier is no longer a threat.’

Steve had his head in his hands. Natalia rubbed soothing circles on his back. She caught Bucky’s eye and smirked knowingly. He smiled back. The tears in his eyes now overflowed.

 

-

 

‘Agent Romanoff, please describe your relationship with the defendant,’ the prosecutor asked sourly.

Natasha could see why he was frustrated. So far the case had not been going his way. She had snooped a little on the man. He had considered it an open and shut case - how wrong he had been. She resisted the urge to smirk at him.

‘It’s complicated,’ she began. ‘We first met in 1968 on a mission. We developed a relationship from there. We met again in 1975 when I went AWOL and liberated him from his handlers.’

‘Define this relationship,’ he demanded.

Natasha eyed the cameras warily. She had argued hotly with Matt about keeping it a secret but she had lost. It simply helped James’s case too much to paint his softer side during his enslavement. So Natasha shrugged.

‘It was as romantic as it could be, under the circumstances. We could not allow our superiors to discover we were sleeping together.’

The prosecutor’s eyes brightened. Natasha felt a rock form in her stomach at the sight of it.

‘But is it not true, Miss Romanoff, that your actual date of birth was not 1984 as you previously believed but actually 1951?’

‘It is,’ Natasha confirmed warily.

‘Which would have made you seventeen at the time of your initial relationship with Barnes, an underage girl.’

A few murmurs echoed around the courtroom. Natasha felt herself relax. His point was of no consequence, as she was about to prove. She smiled tightly.

‘Sir, I trained with 27 other girls in the Black Widow program. When I was twelve they dropped us in the tundra with only enough supplies for one of us to survive. I assure you that by seventeen I was no longer a child.’

That shut him up, but sadly not for long.

‘Is it not true that Barnes shot you?’

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘He shot me once in Odessa and once in DC.’

‘Yet you maintain he is not dangerous?’

‘No,’ she objected gently. ‘Barnes is dangerous, just like Captain Rogers is dangerous or I am. Every member of our team is dangerous, but only to those who threaten this world. Sergeant Barnes is no danger to anyone who is not a danger to everyone else.’

‘You think of him as part of your team?’

‘We have worked together sporadically through the years,’ she replied. ‘He is an excellent soldier. I would consider him a valuable asset were he admitted to the Avengers. If not, he is still one of us in friendship if not in battle.’

‘Friendship,’ he mused. ‘Is that what you share now?’

Natasha leveled a cold look at him. ‘I do not believe that is relevant, sir. But if you must know, yes. I am his friend as he is mine.’

Somehow, it hurt to admit it. Natasha swallowed the sting of longing and loss. If history indicated anything, James Buchanan Barnes was not made to be her  _ friend _ . Her eyes slid to his. For a second they shared a look laden with something before he looked away. Natasha looked back to the prosecutor.

‘Miss Romanoff, please tell us of the defendant’s character when you knew him.’

She nodded. ‘We first met on a mission. He was very reserved, only acting out of necessity. He taught the other soldiers we worked with to use the weapons we brought. He was determined, a little cold at first but slowly warmed up.’ She shrugged. ‘He was kind to me. We worked well together. He was...fragile in some ways. His memories returned to him when out of HYDRA’s grip. He would have delirious episodes in the heat and lapse into American English, we spoke in Russian you see. We saved each other’s skins.’

‘You seem to be describing a successful relationship. Pray tell us  _ why _ you never thought to mention the existence of this man to anybody after your defection? Or  _ why _ when you undoubtedly saw his face in museums and on bus stops you did not tell your new friend Captain Rogers about him? Was there perhaps something to hide?’

Natasha scowled. ‘I did not say anything because I did not remember him. My memory was wiped of him following our mission.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I loved him,’ she admitted, ‘and that was not permitted.’

Natasha looked back to James. He stared at her with soft eyes. She smiled back wanly. 

The prosecutor’s expression had soured deeply. He obviously had not expected Natasha to cast such a good light over James. He sat down abruptly.

‘No further questions,’ he announced.

 

-

 

‘We find the defendant not guilty.’

The words still echoed in Bucky’s head when he felt the bullet hit. He saw Steve’s face freeze. Natalia’s smile dropped. He felt the hot impact of metal in his chest. His breath sighed out the hole. His body pitched forward, eyes darkening, and he tasted blood on his tongue. He collapsed to the floor of the courtroom.

If this was death he was sure he deserved it. He looked up at the bodies that shielded him. Steve stood a little distance away, wrestling the gunman to the floor. Natalia burst through the crowd and fell to her knees beside him. Her face was a thing of anguish.

Yes, he deserved death, but she and Steve did not. 

Bucky wanted to cry -  _ he didn’t want to go! - _ but he did not have the breath for it. The last thing he felt was the touch of Natalia’s hot hands on his cheeks.


	11. Chapter 11

_ Hearts can break. Yes, hearts can break. Sometimes I think it would be better if we died when they did, but we don’t. _

‘Hearts in Atlantis’, Stephen King

 

New York, February 2017

 

Natasha looked at James’s blank face between her hands. Bile rose in her throat. She slid a hand down to his neck, fingers pressing deep into his flesh for a pulse. There was one, but it was erratic. Natasha gasped for breath. She gently moved his head into her lap and placed her free hand over the bullet hole in his chest. 

‘Don’t you die on me, Barnes,’ she hissed. ‘Don’t you dare.’

The courtroom was in chaos. Steve had caught the shooter, and had him pinned to the ground harshly - a foot in his back. Sam was evacuating the civilians. Natasha looked around her desperately to see who was phoning the ambulance. Wanda, eyes burning red, was on the phone. She approached Natasha, looking down at James.

‘In his chest,’ she said down the phone. ‘One bullet, I think…I don’t know. Natasha, does he have a pulse?’

‘Give me the phone!’ Natasha spat. ‘And will  _ someone _ find the bullet!’

Wanda, taken aback, placed the phone between Natasha’s shoulder and cheek. Natasha gave medical information rapidly to the operator. His pulse was erratic, his breathing slowing, yes she was applying pressure to the wound.

‘ETA on the ambulance?’ she demanded.

‘Six minutes out, miss.’

Natasha looked up at Wanda, eyes hard and cold. ‘Clear a path,’ she ordered. ‘Get that ambulance here faster.’

Wanda nodded, and ran from the room. 

James let out an alarming gurgle. Natasha dropped the phone to the polished floor and leaned over him. She listened to the bubbling sound accompanying his breathing.

‘I got a bullet!’ Clint called.

‘Exit wound,’ Natasha muttered to herself. 

She hastily but carefully moved James back to the floor. She lay him flat and pressed both her palms over the wound. They were slick with blood. His breathing still laboured through liquid.

‘A little help!’ she shouted to the room.

Clint appeared by her side. 

‘Tilt his head back and to the side,’ she ordered. ‘His airway is obstructed. He’s drowning.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Clint muttered. 

His movements were swift and precise. Natasha watched him like a hawk. The gurgling decreased. James’s breathing evened out a little. Clint pressed cloth into her hands - his suit jacket - and she used it to cover and press against the wound. Her heart still beat in her mouth. His heart was jumping madly in his chest. She wondered if it had been hit.

‘Where’s that FUCKING AMBULANCE?!’ Natasha shouted.

Paramedics rushed into the room moments later. Natasha allowed herself to be pulled away from James. She watched for as an oxygen mask was slipped over his face, as they began to assess his injuries. Then she turned to the man who shot him.

Steve still had him pinned to the floor under his foot. The court bailiff handcuffed his hands behind his back. Natasha considered the terrified expression on the rat’s face. He did not strike her as a professional hire. He looked civilian, until she saw his tongue poking inside his cheek.

Natasha threw herself at him, landing hard on her stomach but capturing his jaw in her hand. Without care to be gentle Natasha stuck her other hand into his mouth, scraped his upper teeth and pulled out the false one. She released him and climbed to her feet. Steve looked at her seriously for an explanation.

‘Cyanide pill,’ Natasha explained. She threw it to the floor and crushed it under her shoe. 

Steve hauled the shooter to his feet. Natasha searched his pockets but he carried no ID. 

‘Police are on their way,’ Steve explained. 

A cry of pain made them turn. James was awake again, and being loaded onto a stretcher. Natasha felt the urge to once more run to his side.

‘You deserve it!’ the shooter gasped out. ‘You deserve it, you bastard!’ 

Another urge overtook the previous quickly. Planting her feet and drawing back her fist, Natasha span and punched the man directly in the eye, pushing through to break his nose also. The men let out a shriek and slumped a little in Steve’s grasp. Natasha stretched her fingers.

‘You bitch!’ The man blinked rapidly. ‘I can’t see!’

His eye was bloody, his nose bent awkwardly. Natasha was not satisfied. She grabbed him by the throat and leaned into his face.

‘You’re lucky,’ she hissed, ‘that  _ Captain America _ is here, because in Russia I would fucking eat you.’

She squeezed his throat between her fingers, hard but only briefly. He gasped for air as she let him go.

Natasha followed the paramedics to the ambulance. A crowd had gathered outside the building, but a faint red glow kept them at bay. She nodded in thanks to Wanda who nodded back firmly. She would protect the ambulance. 

Nobody objected when Natasha climbed into the back of the ambulance. She sat down by the side of the stretcher and looked over James. His shirt had been cut away and his chest rapidly bandaged. A paramedic still applied pressure to the wound. James blinked blearily at the bright ambulance lights. A heart monitor beeped unsteadily.

Natasha wanted to say something but her throat was dry. She could feel the tears clawing at the bottom of her lungs, ready to explode. If she opened her mouth they would come flying out. So instead she wrapped her hand around his flesh one and squeezed it gently.

James’s eyes moved over to her. To her surprise they were full of tears. More than that they were terrified, and Natasha felt a tearing pain through her own chest. Her own tears could no longer be held back and spilled over onto her cheeks. His fingers held hers weakly.

He wheezed, gurgled. ‘ _ Natashka… _ ’

‘Shhh,’ she bid. ‘Save your strength.’ Her voice was no better: thin and watery.

‘ _ I’m sorry _ ,’ he said in quiet Russian.

‘ _ Don’t speak, _ ’ she urged. 

‘ _ But what if I die? _ ’ he asked, smiling madly. Tears sped down his temples, soaking into his hair. ‘ _ I have to say....I have to tell you that…’ _

He gasped for a wet, gurgling breath. Natasha squeezed his hand again.

‘Sir, it’s best if you don’t speak for now,’ the paramedic said firmly.

‘ _ Stop speaking, you idiot _ ,’ Natasha said gently. She sniffed back more tears in vain. ‘ _ You’re not going to die, you’re not allowed to leave me. _ ’

‘ _ How could I leave you? _ ’ he asked, looking at her intently. ‘ _ I’ve dreamt of you for fifty years. _ ’

Natasha smiled wobbily. Words once again failed her. Instead, half madly, she leaned down to press her forehead against his. His eyes slid shut. They spent the remaining few minutes of the journey like that, holding fifty years of missed moments in each other’s hands.

 

Bucky woke to the sound of incessant beeping. He opened his eyes and glared at the heart monitor he was hooked up to. The second thing he became aware of was the absolute dryness of his mouth. He cast his eyes around for water and spotted Steve staring intently out the window, a finger holding the blinds apart just enough to see. He turned as Bucky stretched for the water jug by his bed.

‘Hey,’ he said softly. ‘Let me.’

Steve poured a glass and passed it over. Bucky sipped cautiously, felt fine, and then downed it. He held the glass out for another. Steve complied.

‘How are you feeling?’ Steve asked nervously.

Bucky shrugged. ‘Alright. What’s the damage?’

Steve sighed and sat down heavily. ‘Bullet went right through your lung and managed to nick your heart. Gave us a right scare. Doctors think you’ll be okay though.’

‘Is that all?’ Bucky muttered. 

‘You had two blood transfusions. One from me and one from Nat.’

‘What?’ Bucky frowned.

He fumbled for the bed’s remote and used it to sit upright. As far as he was aware Bucky had never received a transfusion before, but then again he had never been shot in the chest. Why did they use Steve and Natalia’s blood? Had the world run out of donors?

‘Your body rejected any blood that wasn’t enhanced,’ Steve explained. ‘It was the same with me, after D.C. Luckily I donate blood pretty regularly and they managed to locate some of it.’

‘Nat didn’t donate to you?’ Bucky asking, slightly teasingly.

Steve shrugged and smiled. ‘We didn’t know she was enhanced back then.’

‘Where is she?’ the words burst out of him. He tried to play them off as casual by picking at his robes.

‘I don’t know.’ Steve’s smile widened. ‘Pretty sure she’s on the warpath though. I pity the morons involved in this.’

‘That guy wasn’t working alone?’ 

Steve shook his head. ‘He rolled on some people pretty quick once Nat destroyed his cyanide pill and burst his eye socket.’

‘She always did know how to interrogate. What’s the plan?’

‘Now you’re awake we’re going to move you to the compound. We got the rest of the team running security, except Nat wherever she is. We’re gonna get you secure and then figure out a plan from there.’

‘I knew I should have worn a vest.’

‘Why weren’t you?’ Steve’s tone became stern in a second. His eyebrows drew together angrily.

Bucky shrugged. ‘The lawyers said it would make me look guilty. I shouldn’t have listened.’

Steve sighed. ‘I’m going to find a doctor to check up on you. Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.’

Bucky smiled to himself as Steve left. In truth he felt okay. Between his advanced healing and the morphine drip the pain was kept at bay. He turned his mind instead to the comfort he had kept for the past five decades: Natalia.

Their moments in the ambulance felt like a dream to him now. Had she really held his hand and pressed her forehead to his? Had she really cried? His heart thumped, causing the monitor to respond loudly. Bucky took a deep breath to calm himself before Steve returned.

Bucky was discharged quickly into the care of the Compound medical staff. Upon arrival there they pumped him full of drugs and sent him to sleep. Apparently they had observed increased recovery times in Steve’s advanced healing during REM sleep. Bucky did not argue - he felt bone tired.

 

Bucky was woken when something wet smacked him across the face. He gasped awake, throwing his metal arm over his face to protect himself. He peered upwards to see Natalia stood there, empty cup in hand. Her face was like thunder. Slowly, Bucky lowered his arm. 

‘What was that for?’ he demanded.

‘What do you think?’ she snapped. Natalia threw the mug to the floor where is smashed into pieces. ‘For not wearing a fucking vest! What the hell were you thinking?!’

‘The lawyers-’

‘And since  _ when _ ,’ she interrupted, ‘do we take that sort of advice from lawyers and crackpot vigilantes?! Are you insane? Did you want to die?’

‘What? No-’

‘Because I wouldn’t put it past you,’ she hissed. ‘Woe is you and all that  _ shit! _ You are the worst of all for that self-pitying crap! But this is too fucking far, James!’

‘Hey!’ Bucky sat up, anger growing in his chest. ‘I did  _ not _ want to die! I was just talking their advice, you were the one who fucking recommended them!’

‘For legal matters!’ 

‘This was a legal matter!’

‘Don’t lie to me, James!’

The door swung open and Steve stood there, face as hard as stone. He looked between them carefully for a moment. Natalia glared.

‘What?’ she snapped.

‘What’s going on here?’ Steve asked.

‘Nothing, Steve,’ Bucky began quickly, ‘it’s fine-’

He was cut off by Natalia’s swift and deadly slap across his cheek. It stung all the more for the water. Bucky grunted and covered his face with his right hand. Between his fingers he saw Steve grab Natalia and attempt to remove her from the room.

‘No!’ she shouted. She shoved him away. ‘No! This  _ idiot _ does not get to waltz around without a bulletproof vest and then let  _ us _ suffer when he gets shot! It’s not fair!’

Bucky took his hand away and glared at her. ‘You seem to be forgetting that I was the one who got shot!’

She stood at the end of his bed, her hands gripping the rail so tight her knuckles were pale. Her face was a mix of anger and rising sadness. Bucky felt his heart give a painful squeeze.

‘What if you had died?’ she challenged. ‘What would have been the point of all of this? Of the trial, of Wakanda, of the Civil War? What would have been the point of the last  _ fifty years _ of you loving me and me loving you if you’re going to behave like a sitting duck!’

‘Don’t give me that horseshit!’ Bucky spat back, words rising from deep within himself. ‘You didn’t love me! And I couldn’t even remember you for most of it!’

Her face turned sour. ‘And how did you come to that conclusion?’

‘You sold me out!’ Bucky yelled. ‘You brought me back to those assholes after Vietnam! You never loved me, I was just some...plaything. I was something for you to sharpen your teeth on.’

‘OH!’ Natalia shouted, throwing her hands in the air. ‘Is that right? Says the man who watched me get strapped to that fucking chair and wiped! Says the man who looked me in the eye and shot me  _ twice! _ Yet here I am, the prize idiot! I should never have given you the time of fucking day!’

‘Because that’s what you’ve been doing,’ Bucky replied sarcastically. ‘Avoiding me at every opportunity, sending me into dungeons to meet with lawyers-’

‘Because this is what I wanted to avoid!’ she spat.

‘What? The truth?!’

‘Yes! Why should I involve myself with you at all? Maybe I can forgive the shootings and the stranglings and the fights, but the fact still remains that you broke my heart. Today and every other time you’ve tried to leave me. You broke my heart!’

‘You killed me!’ Bucky retaliated. ‘When you took me back to those  _ cunts _ that’s exactly what you did. You killed me. This nightmare could have ended fifty years ago.’

The back of her hand covered Natalia’s mouth. She nodded frantically, eyes filling with tears. Bucky felt his heart give another painful squeeze and then explode within his chest - it fragmented into a hundred pieces. 

‘I was a girl,’ Natalia muttered harshly, dropping her hand to her hip and lowering her head. ‘I did what I did to stop you being killed. I guess I’m sorry for that.’

She cast him one last bitter look, her mouth turned downwards, her eyes swimming with fire. She turned to the door.

‘Natalia,’ Bucky called, ‘wait.’

She did not. She marched to the door, went to open it and found it locked.


	12. Chapter 12

_I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,_ _  
_ _in secret, between the shadow and the soul._

‘Sonnet XVII’, Pablo Neruda

 

New York, February 2017

 

Natasha yanked on the door handle but it was locked tight. Furious and humiliated tears still swam in her eyes and she wanted nothing more than to get away from James. She stepped to the right and pulled back the window blinds. On the other side in the corridor stood Steve, arms folded and face stern. During their argument she had not noticed him leave.

‘Steve!’ she snapped as harshly as she could. ‘Open the door!’

‘No!’ he called back, shaking his head. ‘I’ve had enough. You two are going to stay in there until you sort it out.’

Anger bloomed across Natasha’s face. ‘Open the door!’ she repeated.

‘No. You’re both being stupid. And you’re not coming out until you make up or one of you dies!’

Her anger gave way to disbelief. He was serious. She tried the door again, futilely. The blinds dropped back into place noisily.

‘Steve, you have got to be kidding! I swear to God I’ll put this window in. I own this fucking building!’

‘You will do no such thing!’ a second voice called.

Natasha’s disbelief deepend. She yanked back the blinds once more to see Pepper standing beside Steve, arms also crossed. Before Natasha could form a response, James was trying to prise the door open with his metal hand. Natasha saw Steve grab the handle and prevent it opening. Pepper approached her on the other side of the glass.

‘You’re sorting this out one way or the other!’ Pepper said loudly. ‘No more running away or hiding or any of that spy bullshit!’

‘You cannot be serious!’ she repeated.

‘Dead serious! So get to work!’

Natasha glared viciously. ‘You’re going to pay for this, Potts!’

Pepper smiled sarcastically. ‘You’re going to thank me one day!’

‘Fuck you!’

Natasha slapped the blinds back into place and backed into the room. From the corner of her eye she watched James give up trying to pull the door open. He was hissing harshly through the door to Steve. Eventually, James too stepped back. Natasha turned her face away so he could not see it. She listened as he climbed back into his hospital bed.

His words flooded back to her now. _You killed me!_ Yes, she guessed she had, but he had killed her too. The angry tears resurfaced. She hunched her shoulders, back to him. She couldn’t face him now.

‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured after a minute of silence. ‘I didn’t...I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘Oh, go fuck yourself,’ she hissed.

Natasha walked to the far corner of the room and sat herself in a chair. She busied herself with her mobile phone and very firmly ignored James Buchanan Barnes.

 

It had worked _then_ , why did it not work _now?_

The question tortured Bucky. It rattled noisily around his brain, answerless. All he could do was stare at the cold shoulder she offered him and the red hair that cascaded over it. The same red hair he had once run his hands through - that he had once got caught in the metal plates of his left. The same hair he ached to push from her face and kiss her _now_ , just as he had _then._

Bucky forced himself to look away. She would not like his staring. He looked instead into his empty hands and asked himself again why it had all gone so wrong this time around.

If anything it should have been easier this time. They were both free now, both in full possession of their faculties and personalities and memories. They should have come together like two pieces of a puzzle - no Red Room or HYDRA to hound them. Yet the five feet of space between them was a canyon, and Bucky could only stare across. He forced himself to look away once more.

 _Then_ they would not have wasted time, there had been no time to waste. He would have gathered her in his arms, kissed her, and run. They would have hidden together and loved each other desperately.

Bucky’s heart gave a painful twist. That was the crux of it, what their relationship lacked now that it had not then: desperation.

He never thought he’d long for those days, even for a second, but he did then. He wanted to be the puppet Winter Soldier again just to have an excuse to cling to her. He hung his head in shame.

‘I don’t hear talking!’ the woman called Pepper shouted through the glass.

Bucky flinched at the noise. Natalia’s stiff shoulder remained exactly in place. Not a hair on her head moved. Bucky forced himself to speak.

‘They’re not going to let us out until we talk,’ he pointed out the obvious.

At this her head tilted and he was granted a small glimpse of her cheek, eye and forehead. She glared at him over her shoulder.

‘I think we’ve said enough,’ she replied flatly.

Her tone made his throat constrict, but a determination had sprang up in Bucky. He realised this strange situation was a blessing. After what he had said to her she had every right to walk away from him and never look back. He had been granted one opportunity to set it right, and he must seize it.

‘I’m sorry,’ he began. She turned her head away once more. ‘For both not wearing a vest and for what I said, I’m sorry. I had no right...I just…’ He struggled to put his reasons into words. ‘I should not use offensive maneuvers with you,’ he explained clumsily. ‘You’re not the enemy.’

‘Offensive maneuvers,’ she repeated drily. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’

‘I didn’t want to attack you,’ he tried to explain more clearly, ‘but you attacked first. I reacted poorly, and out of fear.’

Her head tilted towards him again.

‘Fear?’

‘You scare the hell out of me,’ he admitted in a rush. His heart thudded with the truth of it. ‘You scare me to death. If it had been you shot in that court I don’t know what I would do…’ he swallowed drily. ‘I’m so scared that I can’t protect you, and I _can’t_ protect you. Not even then when we knew our enemies. Now...well, I can’t even stop myself from hurting you.’

Natalia had slowly rotated in her seat while he talked. Her posture was still stiff, but at least she faced him now. She listened attentively, eyes narrowed. Her arms were crossed and leaning on her knees, her body hunched and caged.

‘Then you see why I’m angry you didn’t wear a vest,’ she said in a cold tone. ‘You see what you put me through.’

Bucky forced himself to meet her eye so that she might see his guilt. ‘I do, and I’m sorry.’

‘Then why did you do it?’ she begged.

Bucky watched as her mask broke. Her eyes grew sad in a second, her lips crumpled. His own chest cracked in sympathy and a monitor in the corner of the room beeped in protest. He took a deep breath to calm it. His head dropped again.

‘I wanted the best chance of going free,’ he admitted softly. ‘The outlines of a bulletproof vest would have made me look guilty or as if I was planning something. I wanted the best chance of walking free so I could live a life I could be proud of, so I could maybe work with the team, so that I might make it work with you in a world where we are both free.’

‘Look at me,’ she demanded.

He did. For a long moment Natalia studied his expression, her own still sad. They looked at each other across the canyon in silence.

‘Then I’m sorry,’ she finally said, ‘for reacting the way I did. I was scared too, I guess...But you can’t bring up the things I did fifty years ago every time I get angry with you.’

Bucky felt the shame cloud his face. He blinked back tears. ‘I know,’ he croaked. ‘I’m sorry…’

‘I was a girl,’ she repeated her words from earlier. ‘I wanted you alive and with me. I was wrong, yes, but I can’t change that now.’

‘And I can’t change shooting you.’

Natalia unfolded her arms to press her palms together. She considered them for a long moment before looking up again. She gave a slight shrug.

‘I can forgive you if you can forgive me,’ she said plainly.

‘I can forgive you,’ he replied quickly, afraid she would retract the offer.

‘Can you?’ she challenged.

‘I’d do anything,’ Bucky admitted. ‘I meant what I said in the ambulance. My only dreams have been random memories of you. For half a century I only saw you when I closed my eyes. I dreamt of you for fifty years, and I’ll dream of you for fifty more.’

After a pause she said, ‘I wish I had remembered sooner. I would have found you, I would have brought an army.’

He smiled bitterly. ‘I know.’

She scrubbed her eyes with her fingers wearily. In an unexpected move her hand ventured beneath the collar of her shirt. She withdrew something that hung around her neck, two things he saw she held them in her palms. He squinted, unable to make them out at the distance.

Natalia rose, a little of her usual grace lacking in the awkward set of her shoulders, and crossed the room to the edge of his bed. Bucky swallowed the fear. He had to focus. She dropped one item so it nestled between her breasts again and presented the other to him.

Gently Bucky too the metal pendants from her hand, confusion growing across his face. He turned them over, astounded. She was wearing his dog tags.

‘Where did you get these?’

She rested her hands awkwardly by her side as he turned them over and over. They were his originals, tarnished but recognisable.

‘After D.C. I went back to the Red Room,’ she explained softly. ‘I found out about my whole life there, which in turn lead me to a storage locker in Prague. It was filled with the usual things, and these. I can’t remember how I got them out but I did. It must have been in ‘75 before I came to get you.’ She smiled and huffed out a little laugh. ‘Hid them from myself. Guess I knew I’d forget again.’

Bucky’s eyes slid to the second pendant - a jade teardrop wrapped in gold.

‘Did you hide that at the same time?’ he asked, nodding towards it.

‘Yes.’

Natalia reached up and unlooped the dog tags from around her neck. The touch of her skin was electrifying as she pressed them into his flesh hand. Her eyes were kinder now, less betrayed. Hope bloomed in Bucky as he closed his hand around them. Then, confusion. He frowned at her.

‘How long have you been wearing these?’ he asked.

‘Two years and seven months,’ she admitted softly. ‘Since I found them. I just...I guess I’ve been dreaming of you too.’

‘Will you keep them for me?’

Bucky pushed the tags back into her hand. This time she did not draw away from his touch, but cupped his hand gently between her own. Her fingers trailed over the old metal.

‘But what can I give you, Yasha?’ she asked teasingly.

Bucky heaved a pretend sigh. ‘Well, you could always marry me then you’d have to give me a ring.’

And she laughed. It was the best sound he had ever heard.

With all the ease of fifty years previous, Bucky placed a hand behind her head and pulled Natalia into a kiss.

 


End file.
